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Who wants to be the Jeremy Ashkenas of PHP? There, a perfect opportunity for language designers to shine. Nothing fancy, just fork and fix. No need to come up

Who wants to be the Jeremy Ashkenas of PHP? There, a perfect opportunity for language designers to shine. Nothing fancy, just fork and fix. No need to come up with new paradigms. Nothing to make you sweat. Just fork the damn thing and fix the warts with a scalpel. It is and will be the most used language for web development. If that is not a shiny medal in your chest and a place in history books, I don't know what is. Any takers?

function_seven 14y ago
Seriously, if the first forked revision simply normalized the parameter order of core functions, and standardized on verb_noun() (or noun_verb(), I don't care) function naming, I'd be happy. Yes, it's a cosmetic failing only, but it would go a long way to making the whole language seem coherent.
Kilimanjaro 14y ago
Some things I'd like to fix: Drop the dollar Use + for str concat Use . for class members Use . for dicts Use . for namespaces Use : for key:value pairs Fix needles and haystacks Use camelCase for functions Use arrays and dicts literals Use list genereators Use request and response objects Objectify strings, lists and dicts While most of it is syntactic sugar, this will solve 90% of the problems for 90% of the people. Feel free to add yours.
- Mikushi 14y ago
  Here is my list: - Stop trying to turn PHP into another language. Millions of developers are perfectly fine with its syntax, deal with it.
- kbanman 14y ago
  So, basically make it javascript. I'm a long-time PHP developer, but I'd very much like that. Someday I'll have to learn node.js...
  - kree10 14y ago
    That's the thing. Once you have "fixed" PHP, you're left with a brand new language that few people know, won't run your existing code, isn't included in Linux distributions or hosting packages, have no books about it and no answers on StackOverflow. Of course these things will all happen in time if the fixed version takes hold. But if you're willing to throw out PHP and start anew, you can have all of the above right now by learning Node, Rails, Django, etc. I think the comment above about needing a Jeremy Ashkenas (that is, a CoffeeScript for PHP) is the only realistic way for a "fixed" PHP to succeed. There needs to be a smooth transition, and a FixedPHP-to-PHP5 compiler could provide it.
Mikushi 14y ago
http://www.xarg.org/2011/06/php-hacking/ http://www.xarg.org/2011/06/php-hacking/
- Kilimanjaro 14y ago
  I like what I see, it shows you got balls. In the comments people applauded your efforts, simplifying arrays with array literals is a win, see? It is not about making it a completely different language, just about simplifying it, making our lives easier. What's wrong about dropping the dollar sign for variables? What's wrong about objectifying a string so our editor can popup all string functions on 'name'.? What's wrong with using key:val instead of key=>val? Saving one char at a time is a win, we are lazy beasts, you know it.

function_seven 14y ago

Seriously, if the first forked revision simply normalized the parameter order of core functions, and standardized on verb_noun() (or noun_verb(), I don't care) function naming, I'd be happy. Yes, it's a cosmetic failing only, but it would go a long way to making the whole language seem coherent.

Kilimanjaro 14y ago

Some things I'd like to fix: Drop the dollar Use + for str concat Use . for class members Use . for dicts Use . for namespaces Use : for key:value pairs Fix needles and haystacks Use camelCase for functions Use arrays and dicts literals Use list genereators Use request and response objects Objectify strings, lists and dicts While most of it is syntactic sugar, this will solve 90% of the problems for 90% of the people. Feel free to add yours.

Mikushi 14y ago
Here is my list: - Stop trying to turn PHP into another language. Millions of developers are perfectly fine with its syntax, deal with it.
kbanman 14y ago
So, basically make it javascript. I'm a long-time PHP developer, but I'd very much like that. Someday I'll have to learn node.js...
- kree10 14y ago
  That's the thing. Once you have "fixed" PHP, you're left with a brand new language that few people know, won't run your existing code, isn't included in Linux distributions or hosting packages, have no books about it and no answers on StackOverflow. Of course these things will all happen in time if the fixed version takes hold. But if you're willing to throw out PHP and start anew, you can have all of the above right now by learning Node, Rails, Django, etc. I think the comment above about needing a Jeremy Ashkenas (that is, a CoffeeScript for PHP) is the only realistic way for a "fixed" PHP to succeed. There needs to be a smooth transition, and a FixedPHP-to-PHP5 compiler could provide it.

Mikushi 14y ago

http://www.xarg.org/2011/06/php-hacking/ http://www.xarg.org/2011/06/php-hacking/

Kilimanjaro 14y ago
I like what I see, it shows you got balls. In the comments people applauded your efforts, simplifying arrays with array literals is a win, see? It is not about making it a completely different language, just about simplifying it, making our lives easier. What's wrong about dropping the dollar sign for variables? What's wrong about objectifying a string so our editor can popup all string functions on 'name'.? What's wrong with using key:val instead of key=>val? Saving one char at a time is a win, we are lazy beasts, you know it.