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>the first question that comes up is what to use instead, and they’re met with a barrage of difficult choices and wildly different opinions and recommendations.

>the first question that comes up is what to use instead, and they’re met with a barrage of difficult choices and wildly different opinions and recommendations. The real answer is "it doesn't matter". Of course python people will try to convince you to use python, and ruby people will try to convince you to use ruby. But both groups will agree that either language is far better than PHP. And as someone who likes neither of those languages, I would agree with both of them, just pick one. There's no "wrong choice" to worry about.

irishcoffee 14y ago
Very much this. The comparison he tried to draw with Linux distros, same deal. Who cares? Try one. You're a hacker, go grab a language and hack some code. No, you won't be as good with Python when you start as you may currently be with PHP, big deal. A weekend project is the PERFECT time to learn a new language/framework. Sure the weekend may become 2-6 weekends, who cares? If I am not mistaken, Twitter and Reddit have both changed very large parts of their codebase from one language to another, so I don't really know if I buy that argument either. Finally, I think programming languages should work for the guy writing the program. I made a point of learning everything I could (and continue to do so) about every language I come across. So when I need to do something, I have 6-7 toolboxes at my disposal, as opposed to 1 or 2. I write in 5-6 different languages every day at my current job, and have become a very valuable employee because of this. This is coming from someone who has only the most basic experience with PHP, take it with a grain of salt.
devgutt 14y ago
There's no "wrong choice" to worry about. Famous last words ;)
tedunangst 14y ago
The choice does matter. A lot. When I started with ruby, I had to decide between 1.8, or 1.9, or jruby, or several other choices. Then I had to pick sinatra or rails or merb or whatever. mongrel or passenger or thin or unicorn. It didn't really seem like the choice would matter, but then you run into some tiny annoyance, do a bit of research and find out that some other framework doesn't have that problem. So you switch, only to find a new problem. This goes on for a little while until you realize that you could write the whole damn thing from the ground up in lua. The time spent just researching whether it's a bug in my code or their code starts to eclipse the total project time if done in another language.
- jabwork 14y ago
  "... run into some tiny annoyance, do a bit of research ... So you switch ..." If you pick a solution and run into a tiny annoyance learn to work around it in some way. It is a tiny annoyance. Best case scenario, learn why it's happening, how you can fix it, and (in a dreamland) submit a patch that fixes this for everyone else in the future. Worst-case scenario just find a workaround.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    If it's early in the life of a project and you don't have much experience with the framework, tiny annoyances are a warning sign. If the easy things don't work the way I like, what happens when I try to do something hard? The cost of switching is low. I used merb for all of about 10 minutes before giving up on it. I fooled around, created a couple very basic crud pages, and it worked for a bit, then I got nothing but error pages. root cause: I had created a new class called 'fish'. That opened my eyes to the fact that were was so much automagic fairy dust sprinkled about, if anything serious ever went wrong I would never figure it out.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  You have to choose between all the same kind of stuff with PHP too. The position was "I'm using PHP, and I can't switch to another language because I am afraid I'll pick the wrong one". That position is silly, because anything you pick is guaranteed to be better than PHP. There's no "wrong" between python and ruby, they are for all intents and purposes the same. As for your specific case, writing your own framework in lua doesn't make ruby a wrong choice. You could have written your own framework in ruby too. Or perl, or python, or even one of those dreaded compiled languages.
- krob 14y ago
  Very funny :)

irishcoffee 14y ago

Very much this. The comparison he tried to draw with Linux distros, same deal. Who cares? Try one. You're a hacker, go grab a language and hack some code. No, you won't be as good with Python when you start as you may currently be with PHP, big deal. A weekend project is the PERFECT time to learn a new language/framework. Sure the weekend may become 2-6 weekends, who cares? If I am not mistaken, Twitter and Reddit have both changed very large parts of their codebase from one language to another, so I don't really know if I buy that argument either. Finally, I think programming languages should work for the guy writing the program. I made a point of learning everything I could (and continue to do so) about every language I come across. So when I need to do something, I have 6-7 toolboxes at my disposal, as opposed to 1 or 2. I write in 5-6 different languages every day at my current job, and have become a very valuable employee because of this. This is coming from someone who has only the most basic experience with PHP, take it with a grain of salt.

devgutt 14y ago

There's no "wrong choice" to worry about. Famous last words ;)

tedunangst 14y ago

The choice does matter. A lot. When I started with ruby, I had to decide between 1.8, or 1.9, or jruby, or several other choices. Then I had to pick sinatra or rails or merb or whatever. mongrel or passenger or thin or unicorn. It didn't really seem like the choice would matter, but then you run into some tiny annoyance, do a bit of research and find out that some other framework doesn't have that problem. So you switch, only to find a new problem. This goes on for a little while until you realize that you could write the whole damn thing from the ground up in lua. The time spent just researching whether it's a bug in my code or their code starts to eclipse the total project time if done in another language.

jabwork 14y ago
"... run into some tiny annoyance, do a bit of research ... So you switch ..." If you pick a solution and run into a tiny annoyance learn to work around it in some way. It is a tiny annoyance. Best case scenario, learn why it's happening, how you can fix it, and (in a dreamland) submit a patch that fixes this for everyone else in the future. Worst-case scenario just find a workaround.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  If it's early in the life of a project and you don't have much experience with the framework, tiny annoyances are a warning sign. If the easy things don't work the way I like, what happens when I try to do something hard? The cost of switching is low. I used merb for all of about 10 minutes before giving up on it. I fooled around, created a couple very basic crud pages, and it worked for a bit, then I got nothing but error pages. root cause: I had created a new class called 'fish'. That opened my eyes to the fact that were was so much automagic fairy dust sprinkled about, if anything serious ever went wrong I would never figure it out.
papsosouid 14y ago
You have to choose between all the same kind of stuff with PHP too. The position was "I'm using PHP, and I can't switch to another language because I am afraid I'll pick the wrong one". That position is silly, because anything you pick is guaranteed to be better than PHP. There's no "wrong" between python and ruby, they are for all intents and purposes the same. As for your specific case, writing your own framework in lua doesn't make ruby a wrong choice. You could have written your own framework in ruby too. Or perl, or python, or even one of those dreaded compiled languages.
krob 14y ago
Very funny :)