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> I've been using PHP for well over 10 years, and I love this thing. You're not alone. There are many of us. PHP powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikiped

by maratd 15y ago

> I've been using PHP for well over 10 years, and I love this thing. You're not alone. There are many of us. PHP powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. You can whine all you want about this and that, but you can't argue with success. As far as hammers go, I had my wife make me a stuffed PHP elephant! It's on my desk right now.

chrisbroadfoot 15y ago
Period? C powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. You can whine all you want about this and that, but you can't argue with success.
- skrebbel 15y ago
  Yeah yeah smart kid. And x86 machine code, and transistors, and electrons. And sand, and don't forget about the high-tech machines that were used to make the chips.
  - ktizo 15y ago
    Kittens power the internet, everybody knows that.
- maratd 15y ago
  > C powers the Internet, period. PHP is written in C. So, yeah, I guess that's true.
  - SimHacker 15y ago
    Hey stop unfairly dissing C! It's perfectly possible to implement well designed programming languages in C. Blame the programmer, not the implementation language, for PHP's atrocities. It's not Dennis Ritchie's fault -- Rasmus Lerdorf deserves the blame.
buu700 15y ago
PHP powers the Internet, period. That's a bit strong; I would even say it borders on being outright false no matter how you meant it. PHP is convenient for bashing out quick server-side scripts, but it doesn't "power the Internet" any more than any other language does. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. You can whine all you want about this and that, but you can't argue with success. "Success"? You say it as though the use of PHP were in any way consequential to the success of those projects. Wordpress and Drupal, maybe, but Wikipedia and Facebook are squarely business successes more than anything. I'm not saying PHP is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be (though I personally think it is), but the fact that a company like Facebook uses PHP (and in fact has poured millions into desperately engineering around its many faults) isn't exactly a shining testament to the virtue of the language (any more than a hypothetical Company X using COBOL internally would make COBOL a better language). See: * http://www.quora.com/Would-Facebooks-maintenance-costs-be-lower-if-it-had-been-coded-in-Python-or-Ruby-rather-than-PHP http://www.quora.com/Would-Facebooks-maintenance-costs-be-lo... * http://www.quora.com/Quora-Infrastructure/Why-did-Quora-choose-Python-for-its-development http://www.quora.com/Quora-Infrastructure/Why-did-Quora-choo... * http://www.quora.com/Do-Facebook-engineers-enjoy-programming-in-PHP http://www.quora.com/Do-Facebook-engineers-enjoy-programming...
- SimHacker 15y ago
  Most people who praise the fact that Wikipedia and other software is written in PHP have never actually taken a good look at the source code and tried to do anything with it. Care to discuss the design and architecture of the Mediawiki parser and template system, and what its history and future look like?
  - neilk 15y ago
    Oh, I will! I am a proud colleague and friend of the guy that made this hammer. The future of MediaWiki's parser and templating system won't be PHP. It will be Node.JS. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid
jhuni 15y ago
There are many of us. PHP powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. There is a difference between the web and the internet. The Internet is powered by computer networking hardware, on the on the other hand, the web is powered by utter crap like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and of course PHP.
bigiain 15y ago
"… but you can't argue with success." McDonalds sells more meals than French Laundry. I don't think Thomas Keller cares. PHP certainly has it's niche, and like the "fast food" niche, it can be adequately nutritious and fullfilling for the customers, and hugely profitable for the sellers. There are _certainly_ other ways to do things though, and without doubt ways of measuring results that are more or less flattering to PHP. I'm not personally any more enamored with "Enterprise Java" as as web development tool, but there's clearly people selling those solutions who've got a _very_ convincing sales pitch. (But yeah, I can see why PHP specialists might be "over" HN's typical attitude towards PHP…)

by maratd 15y ago

chrisbroadfoot 15y ago

Period? C powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. You can whine all you want about this and that, but you can't argue with success.

skrebbel 15y ago
Yeah yeah smart kid. And x86 machine code, and transistors, and electrons. And sand, and don't forget about the high-tech machines that were used to make the chips.
- ktizo 15y ago
  Kittens power the internet, everybody knows that.
maratd 15y ago
> C powers the Internet, period. PHP is written in C. So, yeah, I guess that's true.
- SimHacker 15y ago
  Hey stop unfairly dissing C! It's perfectly possible to implement well designed programming languages in C. Blame the programmer, not the implementation language, for PHP's atrocities. It's not Dennis Ritchie's fault -- Rasmus Lerdorf deserves the blame.

buu700 15y ago

PHP powers the Internet, period. That's a bit strong; I would even say it borders on being outright false no matter how you meant it. PHP is convenient for bashing out quick server-side scripts, but it doesn't "power the Internet" any more than any other language does. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. You can whine all you want about this and that, but you can't argue with success. "Success"? You say it as though the use of PHP were in any way consequential to the success of those projects. Wordpress and Drupal, maybe, but Wikipedia and Facebook are squarely business successes more than anything. I'm not saying PHP is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be (though I personally think it is), but the fact that a company like Facebook uses PHP (and in fact has poured millions into desperately engineering around its many faults) isn't exactly a shining testament to the virtue of the language (any more than a hypothetical Company X using COBOL internally would make COBOL a better language). See: * http://www.quora.com/Would-Facebooks-maintenance-costs-be-lower-if-it-had-been-coded-in-Python-or-Ruby-rather-than-PHP http://www.quora.com/Would-Facebooks-maintenance-costs-be-lo... * http://www.quora.com/Quora-Infrastructure/Why-did-Quora-choose-Python-for-its-development http://www.quora.com/Quora-Infrastructure/Why-did-Quora-choo... * http://www.quora.com/Do-Facebook-engineers-enjoy-programming-in-PHP http://www.quora.com/Do-Facebook-engineers-enjoy-programming...

SimHacker 15y ago
Most people who praise the fact that Wikipedia and other software is written in PHP have never actually taken a good look at the source code and tried to do anything with it. Care to discuss the design and architecture of the Mediawiki parser and template system, and what its history and future look like?
- neilk 15y ago
  Oh, I will! I am a proud colleague and friend of the guy that made this hammer. The future of MediaWiki's parser and templating system won't be PHP. It will be Node.JS. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid

jhuni 15y ago

There are many of us. PHP powers the Internet, period. Facebook, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Drupal, etc. etc. There is a difference between the web and the internet. The Internet is powered by computer networking hardware, on the on the other hand, the web is powered by utter crap like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and of course PHP.

bigiain 15y ago

"… but you can't argue with success." McDonalds sells more meals than French Laundry. I don't think Thomas Keller cares. PHP certainly has it's niche, and like the "fast food" niche, it can be adequately nutritious and fullfilling for the customers, and hugely profitable for the sellers. There are _certainly_ other ways to do things though, and without doubt ways of measuring results that are more or less flattering to PHP. I'm not personally any more enamored with "Enterprise Java" as as web development tool, but there's clearly people selling those solutions who've got a _very_ convincing sales pitch. (But yeah, I can see why PHP specialists might be "over" HN's typical attitude towards PHP…)