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I found myself thinking whether one could make an heir apparent to PHP that removed the suckiest aspects and left the same basic "no configuration, just a bunch

by frankus 15y ago

I found myself thinking whether one could make an heir apparent to PHP that removed the suckiest aspects and left the same basic "no configuration, just a bunch of files" model in place (any inherent problems with that model notwithstanding). Sort of how SVN fixed some of the most glaring issues with CVS without forcing people to really change their habits. But I think that the things PHP really has going for it (huge installed base of the runtime, huge installed base of legacy apps, huge developer community) aren't going to smoothly make the jump to a new language. And once you've given up that sort of backward compatibility, why not fix a few other things while you're at it? Still, I think there might be potential for a PHP-like language that breaks some backward compatibility but fixes a lot of basic things like unicode support, modules loaded at startup or runtime rather than as a ./Configure flag, syntactic quirks, etc. Something where you could spend a few minutes to a few hours (max) refactoring a PHP script into PHQ (or whatever you want to call it) script and gradually modernize your app.

Zarel 15y ago
Most of the gripes with PHP seem to do with its syntax, error messages, and inconsistent function naming. It seems like it shouldn't be too difficult to write an automatic converter from "PHP" to "Improved PHP", which might solve a lot of these issues.
- conner_bw 15y ago
  Obligatory "If PHP Were British"? http://www.addedbytes.com/blog/if-php-were-british/ http://www.addedbytes.com/blog/if-php-were-british/
roryokane 15y ago
Pharen (http://scriptor.github.com/pharen/ http://scriptor.github.com/pharen/), a Lisp that compiles to PHP, might be or become such a language. It's not quite as simple to jump right into as PHP is because you need to run Pharen's compiler after editing your code, or set up a script to watch for changes and then compile. But Pharen could theoretically improve its tooling and get very close to PHP's ease of use.

by frankus 15y ago

Zarel 15y ago

Most of the gripes with PHP seem to do with its syntax, error messages, and inconsistent function naming. It seems like it shouldn't be too difficult to write an automatic converter from "PHP" to "Improved PHP", which might solve a lot of these issues.

conner_bw 15y ago
Obligatory "If PHP Were British"? http://www.addedbytes.com/blog/if-php-were-british/ http://www.addedbytes.com/blog/if-php-were-british/

roryokane 15y ago

Pharen (http://scriptor.github.com/pharen/ http://scriptor.github.com/pharen/), a Lisp that compiles to PHP, might be or become such a language. It's not quite as simple to jump right into as PHP is because you need to run Pharen's compiler after editing your code, or set up a script to watch for changes and then compile. But Pharen could theoretically improve its tooling and get very close to PHP's ease of use.