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The page-is-program model still works as well as ever. It's just that, if your problem is so simple that the page-is-program pattern is most appropriate -- for

The page-is-program model still works as well as ever. It's just that, if your problem is so simple that the page-is-program pattern is most appropriate -- for example, if you are eight years old and you want to build a page that serves up a different picture of a dinosaur every time it gets reloaded -- you should just use PHP. Why choose anything else? It's true that other languages have not wasted a lot of time trying to displace PHP as the language of choice for anonymous random dinosaur servers. That's because there's no money in fighting PHP on its home turf. The turf just isn't worth enough. "Vestigial" is the wrong word. That's like describing a screwdriver as "vestigial" because the impact driver has been invented. Sure, impact drivers can accomplish many things that mere screwdrivers cannot, but that doesn't mean that screwdrivers aren't still useful, and numerous, and popular.

jerf 14y ago
Vestigial is the right word; a characteristic of a surviving species that isn't particularly relevant to the question of why they survive. While debate goes back and forth between the various potentially-vestigial organs we may possess, it seems clear that if the appendix contributes anything to humanity's survival, it isn't very much. Also, vestigial tends to imply it isn't actively harmful, which I don't think it is because PHP certainly works just fine with other models as well. (If it were only page-as-program, I'd have another opinion... but it would probably also not be doing anywhere near as well on very large sites and we probably wouldn't still be talking about it as anything but a historical language.) You may disagree that my characterization is correct, but it is certainly the characterization I intended to convey. That's why I parenthetically commented that I think the real reason it has carried on is another one, to contrast the relevant characteristics to the irrelevant ones. Creating a new "PHP-killer" and focusing too much on the vestigial features of PHP is a recipe for failure.

jerf 14y ago

Vestigial is the right word; a characteristic of a surviving species that isn't particularly relevant to the question of why they survive. While debate goes back and forth between the various potentially-vestigial organs we may possess, it seems clear that if the appendix contributes anything to humanity's survival, it isn't very much. Also, vestigial tends to imply it isn't actively harmful, which I don't think it is because PHP certainly works just fine with other models as well. (If it were only page-as-program, I'd have another opinion... but it would probably also not be doing anywhere near as well on very large sites and we probably wouldn't still be talking about it as anything but a historical language.) You may disagree that my characterization is correct, but it is certainly the characterization I intended to convey. That's why I parenthetically commented that I think the real reason it has carried on is another one, to contrast the relevant characteristics to the irrelevant ones. Creating a new "PHP-killer" and focusing too much on the vestigial features of PHP is a recipe for failure.