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"PHP is the best web platform ever", because it (finally) has a decent package manager. And don't mind that far fetched statement, the author will surely delete

"PHP is the best web platform ever", because it (finally) has a decent package manager. And don't mind that far fetched statement, the author will surely delete any rude comments. Congrats, PHP has a package manager. This does nothing to shake my feeling that PHP's most ardent advocates have little hands-on experience with the more full-featured alternatives. You know, like the ones that also have decent package management without PHP's baggage and limitations. edit: hell, calling PHP a "web platform" at all is insulting. Maybe if "web platform" is constrained to JSP/PHP/ASP style pages with no more complexity. Don't mind anything that requires websockets or anything other than... PHP style page rendering. Can we stop with the "PHP is everywhere so it must be good meme"? PHP's availability makes it convenient; it doesn't make it good. I said it before and I'll say it again despite its painful obviousness. If you want to write a random script and upload it to some $2/month hosting, PHP is great. If you're going to build a real webapp that is going to have developers working on it and real users hitting it, you're going to be on a VPS or colo or on your own metal and have all sorts of choices that... have package management and aren't PHP. And if we're talking about throwaway quickie scripts, who really cares anyway?

notinfinland 14y ago
What do you mean by "more full-featured alternatives". To me the main webdev languages look about the same when it comes to the major features that have a noticeable impact on a project. e.g: few projects are affected by the lack of closures And all the talk about real this and real that. I don't think projects become more real when they're written in Ruby or Clojure. They're real when they work and are useful to the customers...
- freshhawk 14y ago
  > To me the main webdev languages look about the same when it comes to the major features that have a noticeable impact on a project. e.g: few projects are affected by the lack of closures Someone needs to read Paul Graham's essay about "the blub paradox" I can tell you that the quality and ease of use of your web framework/libraries is highly affected by the lack of closures and other higher level language features. Even if you don't use them, your library developers have more tools and more flexibility.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Flawed and good are not mutually exclusive. I'm no fan of PHP but I have to give it props. It is a legitimate web platform. No other term is more accurate to describe a tool that is used to drive literally billions of dollars in business and to host content viewed by literally hundreds of millions of users every single day. PHP is out there. Being put to serious work. If you truly believe that PHP is a terrible and horribly broken tool the most dangerous mistake you could make is imagining that PHP doesn't serve as the backbone of much of the web.
illumen 14y ago
Facebook.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  I very specifically didn't say that PHP couldn't be used to build real products, but that still doesn't (at least on it's own) make it good or make it the best.
  - illumen 14y ago
    I guess the worlds most popular websites, and the vast millions of PHP programmers must all not really exist. They can't exist, and can't be making good stuff, because PHP is just doesn't work. Here is a list of template languages people on 'real' platforms use: Python. Airspeed, Castalian, Chameleon, Cheetah, CubicTemp, Django template system, Elements, EmPy, Evoque, HRL Powerful macro preprocessor for HTML, Genshi, Jinja 2, Mako, moody-templates, Myghty, Qpy, PML, pyratemp, Spyce, SUIT, Tempita, Tenjin, Template Toolkit, Templite+, thrases, ClearSilver, HTMLTemplate, JonsPythonModules, meld3, PyMeld, Pyxer, pso, Sprite, teng, webstring, XSLTools, PyPa, Genshi, kajiki, htmltmpl, Kid, SimpleTAL, CherryTemplate, AsciiDoc, Markdown, PyTextile, ReStructuredText, txt2tags, PottyMouth, Creole, Ruby. Radius. HAML. cs/Template. ERB, eRuby, Erubis, Galena, Tenjin, Liquid Markup. Ruty, PageTemplate, Amrita, Amrita2, Kwartz, Markaby. Maline. Builder::XmlMarkup, RedCloth, BlueCloth, RSmarty, Tempura, TAL, Curtis / Punk, Erby, RBML, RTALS, Tie, RVelocity, RailTags, Java. FreeMarker, SiteMesh, StringTemplate, Tea, Better Templates for Everybody, jxp, LSP, JCopist, Dynamator, RTFTemplate, Velocity, JByte, Jamon, JDynamiTe, WebMacro, Viento, IKAT, Bluprints, Transformica, Hapax, MiniTemplator, Xtempore, _Not a complete list._ PHP is a pretty good template language, with pretty amazing documentation. To deploy, you just upload a file. You could walk outside now, and start yelling "I NEED A PHP PROGRAMMER!" and you'd probably find someone pretty quickly. There are millions of hosts to choose from at tiny prices, who can provide support because they know the platform.
    - talkingquickly 14y ago
      Saying PHP is good because Facebook use it is kind of like saying phone hacking is good because it was utilised but some of the UK's most popular newspapers... I'd be interested to know if there's any commentary from people high up in Facebook on whether they'd use PHP again if they were starting now?
drivebyacct2 14y ago
To put my comments in another light, let me postulate this. If I started a project in python, Go, ruby, C# or even something that ran on the JVM, I could give reasons for why I would choose it for something non-trivial. Outside of "I can hire cheap devs" and "I can run it on el-cheapo hosting", I can't think of a good reason to specifically pick PHP.
- illumen 14y ago
  Reducing the cost of your project is a pretty good reason to choose something. Which template language would you choose for those other platforms? One of 200 half-baked templating languages, or something more complete like php? PHP has better documentation than all of those platforms, so that could be another reason. It has more advanced, popular, and featureful Content Management Systems than all of those platforms.
  - aviraldg 14y ago
    > "Half baked" Meh. jinja.pocoo.org > "better documentation" By what measure? docs.python.org is just as good (if not better.)
    - corford 14y ago
      Sorry have to quibble on that last sentence. I'm transitioning from PHP to Python at the moment and I constantly keep thinking "jesus, I wish docs.python.org was as good as php.net".
      - aviraldg 14y ago
        In what sense? I feel it's better than PHP's docs (tutorial, index, module list, everything.) Besides, you rarely ever need to look at the docs. `help(...)` works well enough 99% of the time. Method and module names are clear and easy to guess. If I remember PHP well enough, it was a sorry_mess_of_underscored_function_names (with no namespaces) and had $funky $dollar $signs before variables. Some of the functions worked one way, some of them worked in another way (I mean that similar functions didn't work the same way.) Don't get me started on the type coercion system and the equality operators (among other things.) EDIT: Quite a few people have mentioned that it's easy to deploy PHP software and while that might be true, (as I remember it from when I used to develop in PHP) it's much harder to set up a PHP environment than a Python one. Some of PHP.ini's defaults are (were) horribly broken, Apache has (had) problems finding PHP, etc. In contrast, setting up a Python/WSGI environment is like a breeze.
Kudos 14y ago
When I first started looking for work here in Dublin, Ireland a few years ago, I saw tens of PHP web stack jobs, 1 RoR job and no Python jobs. While the tides have turned slightly, PHP web stack jobs here still far outnumber Ruby and Python equivalents, especially at the entry level. Some developers like PHP because they can get easily work doing it. Businesses likes PHP because they can more easily hire people. Arguments about PHP's ugly and stupid syntax are moot, it has been enabling companies to get shit done with developers at different skill levels for years.
- anthonyb 14y ago
  Yeah - "shit" being the operative word there. The problem I've found is that there's a kind of anti Python paradox at work with PHP: Better than 95% of the PHP jobs out there are horrible scut work for companies that don't give a shit about quality or decent development, even though it costs them an arm and a leg maintaining their steaming legacy codebase. The 5% that you'd actually want to work for need to have a series of huge hurdles to keep out the 95% of PHP mouth breathers^W^Wdevelopers who can't really code.
  - jonwinstanley 14y ago
    I have not found this to be the case. There are a lot of small/medium sized companies that probably started out with a custom Drupal/Wordpress site and have now out-grown it, but don't want to re-write the whole system just so that they can use Python/Ruby. Using PHP is then a no-brainer and so moving the codebase to Symfony2 is a great option for them. While Wordpress and Drupal command such a large share of the website market, there will always be decent young companies emerging who are also tied-in to the PHP community.
    - pestaa 14y ago
      How is moving to Ruby/Python needs a rewrite, but moving to Symfony2 does not?
      - anthonyb 14y ago
xd 14y ago
"PHP's most ardent advocates have little hands-on experience..." And from what I've been seeing, PHP's most ardent critics have little hands-on experience with PHP, itself. Edit: see this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4198900 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4198900 current rambling nonsense I'm having to contend with. Edit edit: the voting is up and down, I can only assume that ~ 50% of this community just don't care about facts and would rather subscribe to witch hunts.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  Yeah, sure seems like this guy has no clue about PHP alright: http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-de...
  - xd 14y ago
    And I guess this guy doesn't either: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4177516 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4177516
    - papsosouid 14y ago
      He seems like he does. You might notice I never said no PHP apologist understands PHP, but rather contradicted your (frequently posted) lie that PHP detractors don't understand PHP. Of course, he doesn't offer an actual rebuttal to much, mainly just "well yeah it sucks, but I know it sucks so its ok".
      - xd 14y ago
        "well yeah it sucks, but I know it sucks so its ok" Sorry, but I really don't see how you got to that assumption. Can you enlighten me to what you are seeing that I'm not?
        papsosouid 14y ago
        Read the thread, it isn't like his post went without responses.
astrodust 14y ago
Malaria is everywhere. It's got to be awesome. That PHP is so omni-present is not a good thing. It's an opportunity to disrupt web development. It's a lesson that we still haven't learned.

notinfinland 14y ago

What do you mean by "more full-featured alternatives". To me the main webdev languages look about the same when it comes to the major features that have a noticeable impact on a project. e.g: few projects are affected by the lack of closures And all the talk about real this and real that. I don't think projects become more real when they're written in Ruby or Clojure. They're real when they work and are useful to the customers...

freshhawk 14y ago
> To me the main webdev languages look about the same when it comes to the major features that have a noticeable impact on a project. e.g: few projects are affected by the lack of closures Someone needs to read Paul Graham's essay about "the blub paradox" I can tell you that the quality and ease of use of your web framework/libraries is highly affected by the lack of closures and other higher level language features. Even if you don't use them, your library developers have more tools and more flexibility.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

Flawed and good are not mutually exclusive. I'm no fan of PHP but I have to give it props. It is a legitimate web platform. No other term is more accurate to describe a tool that is used to drive literally billions of dollars in business and to host content viewed by literally hundreds of millions of users every single day. PHP is out there. Being put to serious work. If you truly believe that PHP is a terrible and horribly broken tool the most dangerous mistake you could make is imagining that PHP doesn't serve as the backbone of much of the web.

illumen 14y ago

Facebook.

drivebyacct2 14y ago
I very specifically didn't say that PHP couldn't be used to build real products, but that still doesn't (at least on it's own) make it good or make it the best.
- illumen 14y ago
  I guess the worlds most popular websites, and the vast millions of PHP programmers must all not really exist. They can't exist, and can't be making good stuff, because PHP is just doesn't work. Here is a list of template languages people on 'real' platforms use: Python. Airspeed, Castalian, Chameleon, Cheetah, CubicTemp, Django template system, Elements, EmPy, Evoque, HRL Powerful macro preprocessor for HTML, Genshi, Jinja 2, Mako, moody-templates, Myghty, Qpy, PML, pyratemp, Spyce, SUIT, Tempita, Tenjin, Template Toolkit, Templite+, thrases, ClearSilver, HTMLTemplate, JonsPythonModules, meld3, PyMeld, Pyxer, pso, Sprite, teng, webstring, XSLTools, PyPa, Genshi, kajiki, htmltmpl, Kid, SimpleTAL, CherryTemplate, AsciiDoc, Markdown, PyTextile, ReStructuredText, txt2tags, PottyMouth, Creole, Ruby. Radius. HAML. cs/Template. ERB, eRuby, Erubis, Galena, Tenjin, Liquid Markup. Ruty, PageTemplate, Amrita, Amrita2, Kwartz, Markaby. Maline. Builder::XmlMarkup, RedCloth, BlueCloth, RSmarty, Tempura, TAL, Curtis / Punk, Erby, RBML, RTALS, Tie, RVelocity, RailTags, Java. FreeMarker, SiteMesh, StringTemplate, Tea, Better Templates for Everybody, jxp, LSP, JCopist, Dynamator, RTFTemplate, Velocity, JByte, Jamon, JDynamiTe, WebMacro, Viento, IKAT, Bluprints, Transformica, Hapax, MiniTemplator, Xtempore, _Not a complete list._ PHP is a pretty good template language, with pretty amazing documentation. To deploy, you just upload a file. You could walk outside now, and start yelling "I NEED A PHP PROGRAMMER!" and you'd probably find someone pretty quickly. There are millions of hosts to choose from at tiny prices, who can provide support because they know the platform.
  - talkingquickly 14y ago
    Saying PHP is good because Facebook use it is kind of like saying phone hacking is good because it was utilised but some of the UK's most popular newspapers... I'd be interested to know if there's any commentary from people high up in Facebook on whether they'd use PHP again if they were starting now?

drivebyacct2 14y ago

To put my comments in another light, let me postulate this. If I started a project in python, Go, ruby, C# or even something that ran on the JVM, I could give reasons for why I would choose it for something non-trivial. Outside of "I can hire cheap devs" and "I can run it on el-cheapo hosting", I can't think of a good reason to specifically pick PHP.

illumen 14y ago
Reducing the cost of your project is a pretty good reason to choose something. Which template language would you choose for those other platforms? One of 200 half-baked templating languages, or something more complete like php? PHP has better documentation than all of those platforms, so that could be another reason. It has more advanced, popular, and featureful Content Management Systems than all of those platforms.
- aviraldg 14y ago
  > "Half baked" Meh. jinja.pocoo.org > "better documentation" By what measure? docs.python.org is just as good (if not better.)
  - corford 14y ago
    Sorry have to quibble on that last sentence. I'm transitioning from PHP to Python at the moment and I constantly keep thinking "jesus, I wish docs.python.org was as good as php.net".
    - aviraldg 14y ago
      In what sense? I feel it's better than PHP's docs (tutorial, index, module list, everything.) Besides, you rarely ever need to look at the docs. `help(...)` works well enough 99% of the time. Method and module names are clear and easy to guess. If I remember PHP well enough, it was a sorry_mess_of_underscored_function_names (with no namespaces) and had $funky $dollar $signs before variables. Some of the functions worked one way, some of them worked in another way (I mean that similar functions didn't work the same way.) Don't get me started on the type coercion system and the equality operators (among other things.) EDIT: Quite a few people have mentioned that it's easy to deploy PHP software and while that might be true, (as I remember it from when I used to develop in PHP) it's much harder to set up a PHP environment than a Python one. Some of PHP.ini's defaults are (were) horribly broken, Apache has (had) problems finding PHP, etc. In contrast, setting up a Python/WSGI environment is like a breeze.

Kudos 14y ago

When I first started looking for work here in Dublin, Ireland a few years ago, I saw tens of PHP web stack jobs, 1 RoR job and no Python jobs. While the tides have turned slightly, PHP web stack jobs here still far outnumber Ruby and Python equivalents, especially at the entry level. Some developers like PHP because they can get easily work doing it. Businesses likes PHP because they can more easily hire people. Arguments about PHP's ugly and stupid syntax are moot, it has been enabling companies to get shit done with developers at different skill levels for years.

anthonyb 14y ago
Yeah - "shit" being the operative word there. The problem I've found is that there's a kind of anti Python paradox at work with PHP: Better than 95% of the PHP jobs out there are horrible scut work for companies that don't give a shit about quality or decent development, even though it costs them an arm and a leg maintaining their steaming legacy codebase. The 5% that you'd actually want to work for need to have a series of huge hurdles to keep out the 95% of PHP mouth breathers^W^Wdevelopers who can't really code.
- jonwinstanley 14y ago
  I have not found this to be the case. There are a lot of small/medium sized companies that probably started out with a custom Drupal/Wordpress site and have now out-grown it, but don't want to re-write the whole system just so that they can use Python/Ruby. Using PHP is then a no-brainer and so moving the codebase to Symfony2 is a great option for them. While Wordpress and Drupal command such a large share of the website market, there will always be decent young companies emerging who are also tied-in to the PHP community.
  - pestaa 14y ago
    How is moving to Ruby/Python needs a rewrite, but moving to Symfony2 does not?
    - anthonyb 14y ago

xd 14y ago

"PHP's most ardent advocates have little hands-on experience..." And from what I've been seeing, PHP's most ardent critics have little hands-on experience with PHP, itself. Edit: see this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4198900 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4198900 current rambling nonsense I'm having to contend with. Edit edit: the voting is up and down, I can only assume that ~ 50% of this community just don't care about facts and would rather subscribe to witch hunts.

papsosouid 14y ago
Yeah, sure seems like this guy has no clue about PHP alright: http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-de...
- xd 14y ago
  And I guess this guy doesn't either: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4177516 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4177516
  - papsosouid 14y ago
    He seems like he does. You might notice I never said no PHP apologist understands PHP, but rather contradicted your (frequently posted) lie that PHP detractors don't understand PHP. Of course, he doesn't offer an actual rebuttal to much, mainly just "well yeah it sucks, but I know it sucks so its ok".
    - xd 14y ago
      "well yeah it sucks, but I know it sucks so its ok" Sorry, but I really don't see how you got to that assumption. Can you enlighten me to what you are seeing that I'm not?
      - papsosouid 14y ago
        Read the thread, it isn't like his post went without responses.

astrodust 14y ago

Malaria is everywhere. It's got to be awesome. That PHP is so omni-present is not a good thing. It's an opportunity to disrupt web development. It's a lesson that we still haven't learned.