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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

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
    That's what I was wondering. I also had a look through the Symfony2 docs. Perhaps it's just me being a Python bigot, but the code there doesn't look any better than the raw PHP: http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/from_flat_php_to_symfony2.html#the-sample-application-in-symfony2 http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/from_flat_php_to_symfony... And the "helper function to render templates" in the section above it also looks fairly deranged. Isn't that included in the framework somewhere? The bits that do look ok seem to be because they're copying Django/Jinja2 templating.
  - jasonlotito 14y ago
    A framework shouldn't (and most all the popular PHP frameworks out there, including Symonfy adhere to this) matter when your business logic is decoupled from from your framework. Yes, you might have to rewrite some constructors. And some frameworks have different features, but can still be carried over if you need it. You aren't beholden to a single code base. For example, I can easily move my models from Zend to Symfony without rewriting a thing. Decoupling is a wonderful thing. So, you have this code base you are using, these libraries that are already written, and tested, and working. Moving to Ruby/Python would require that they all be rewritten, and appropriate libraries be replaces. Moving to another language isn't a weekend endeavor when you have a workflow and toolset built up over a 10+ years of development in another language that, in that domain, accomplishes the same thing.
  - mechanical_fish 14y ago
    If you stay on the same web stack you might be able to migrate one piece at a time. You also have the option of refactoring the most important or troublesome bits of your app to use Symfony2 while leaving the rest alone. It's pretty challenging to take one piece of your big web application and migrate that to Python while leaving the rest in PHP. So you'll tend to do it all at once. That's very expensive, and very risky, even if your original ugly PHP site had an extensive test suite, which it will not.
EvilTerran 14y ago
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 Damn, you just described my job perfectly. "Test framework? What's that? Sounds like it'd take up too much valuable programmer time. PS enjoy walking on eggshells whenever you try to change something because there's no regressions." (╯°□°)╯┻━┻
- anthonyb 14y ago
  The best bit about those environments is that the devs who crank out the most code (ie. LOC-wise) are feted, but they're basically just standing in the bottom of a hole, digging.
  - EvilTerran 14y ago
    Ah, fortunately, we aren't measured by LoCs. Instead, we're measured by the number of items we manage to knock off our in-house half-arsed basecamp reimplementation. Not quite as bad, I guess.
ericingram 14y ago
> "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" Show me your data? You couldn't be more wrong about the companies using PHP. The last startup I worked at in San Francisco, well funded and very successful, used PHP. I was approached by many well known names all using PHP, most of them exciting new companies working with edge technologies for practicality, which is a trait that goes great with PHP).
- TylerE 14y ago
  and for every startup company using php, there are 100 shitty local ad agencies knocking out brochure-ware wordpress sites.
  - ericingram 14y ago
    Sounds like a big success for Wordpress and PHP to me
    - wpietri 14y ago
      In the sense that McDonald's is a big success for American cuisine, sure.
      - ericingram 14y ago
        That's a decent analogy, since McDonald's is a huge success and a model of efficiency in business.
        wilmoore 14y ago
        If more fat americans is a success, I guess that makes sense.
- anthonyb 14y ago
  > Show me your data? Bitter personal experience? I'm a Python dev, but figured PHP and Python would be good to add to my resume. I picked them up pretty quickly, but after working for a couple of PHP places and interviewing at many others, I swore off them and went back to Python. Also, sounds like your startup was one of the 5%, rather than the 95%.
Kudos 14y ago
So don't work for those companies? I think you'll find a similar situation with companies using enterprise languages like .Net or Java, certainly here in Ireland where our universities heavily teach using those technologies. Shitty graduates with no real interest in programming still end up in programming jobs. The shitty PHP developers I meet are invariably actually designers winging it as programmers.

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
  That's what I was wondering. I also had a look through the Symfony2 docs. Perhaps it's just me being a Python bigot, but the code there doesn't look any better than the raw PHP: http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/from_flat_php_to_symfony2.html#the-sample-application-in-symfony2 http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/from_flat_php_to_symfony... And the "helper function to render templates" in the section above it also looks fairly deranged. Isn't that included in the framework somewhere? The bits that do look ok seem to be because they're copying Django/Jinja2 templating.
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  A framework shouldn't (and most all the popular PHP frameworks out there, including Symonfy adhere to this) matter when your business logic is decoupled from from your framework. Yes, you might have to rewrite some constructors. And some frameworks have different features, but can still be carried over if you need it. You aren't beholden to a single code base. For example, I can easily move my models from Zend to Symfony without rewriting a thing. Decoupling is a wonderful thing. So, you have this code base you are using, these libraries that are already written, and tested, and working. Moving to Ruby/Python would require that they all be rewritten, and appropriate libraries be replaces. Moving to another language isn't a weekend endeavor when you have a workflow and toolset built up over a 10+ years of development in another language that, in that domain, accomplishes the same thing.
- mechanical_fish 14y ago
  If you stay on the same web stack you might be able to migrate one piece at a time. You also have the option of refactoring the most important or troublesome bits of your app to use Symfony2 while leaving the rest alone. It's pretty challenging to take one piece of your big web application and migrate that to Python while leaving the rest in PHP. So you'll tend to do it all at once. That's very expensive, and very risky, even if your original ugly PHP site had an extensive test suite, which it will not.

EvilTerran 14y ago

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 Damn, you just described my job perfectly. "Test framework? What's that? Sounds like it'd take up too much valuable programmer time. PS enjoy walking on eggshells whenever you try to change something because there's no regressions." (╯°□°)╯┻━┻

anthonyb 14y ago
The best bit about those environments is that the devs who crank out the most code (ie. LOC-wise) are feted, but they're basically just standing in the bottom of a hole, digging.
- EvilTerran 14y ago
  Ah, fortunately, we aren't measured by LoCs. Instead, we're measured by the number of items we manage to knock off our in-house half-arsed basecamp reimplementation. Not quite as bad, I guess.

ericingram 14y ago

> "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" Show me your data? You couldn't be more wrong about the companies using PHP. The last startup I worked at in San Francisco, well funded and very successful, used PHP. I was approached by many well known names all using PHP, most of them exciting new companies working with edge technologies for practicality, which is a trait that goes great with PHP).

TylerE 14y ago
and for every startup company using php, there are 100 shitty local ad agencies knocking out brochure-ware wordpress sites.
- ericingram 14y ago
  Sounds like a big success for Wordpress and PHP to me
  - wpietri 14y ago
    In the sense that McDonald's is a big success for American cuisine, sure.
    - ericingram 14y ago
      That's a decent analogy, since McDonald's is a huge success and a model of efficiency in business.
      - wilmoore 14y ago
        If more fat americans is a success, I guess that makes sense.
anthonyb 14y ago
> Show me your data? Bitter personal experience? I'm a Python dev, but figured PHP and Python would be good to add to my resume. I picked them up pretty quickly, but after working for a couple of PHP places and interviewing at many others, I swore off them and went back to Python. Also, sounds like your startup was one of the 5%, rather than the 95%.

Kudos 14y ago

So don't work for those companies? I think you'll find a similar situation with companies using enterprise languages like .Net or Java, certainly here in Ireland where our universities heavily teach using those technologies. Shitty graduates with no real interest in programming still end up in programming jobs. The shitty PHP developers I meet are invariably actually designers winging it as programmers.