5 ms·

Empty, non-contributing comments like yours that appear in every single thread about PHP on HN need to stop being posted. Not sorry, I mean it. Stop.

benatkin 14y ago
Your comment made me curious about it and I see that Tichy has about 15K in karma. If he and a hundred people like him quit HN it would probably fix a lot of what's wrong with it.
- josh2600 14y ago
  This is irrelevant and does not add to the discussion. Just like Reddit, Karma is not intended to say "my voice has more weight than yours". Karma is a way of letting people know you agree with them, but, just as in a court of law, if you can find one person willing to speak the truth they can stand strong in a house of lies. Long and short, PHP is going to continue for some time, (just like COBOL, just like assembly) and wishing it was dead is about as effective as a life-savings program subsidized by the Tooth Fairy.
- Tichy 14y ago
  I got curious, too. The last comment you made before this one was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5008026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5008026 Very constructive :-)
justizin 14y ago
Questioning the value of a technology which inhabits the technology industry much like a cancer is not empty. PHP needed a vision 15 years ago. It was originally called "Personal Home Page" and intended to only slightly extend the functionality of Server-Side Includes. People tend to forget that.
- jtreminio 14y ago
  > PHP needs to die That comment is extremely insightful. How did I not see this? > It was originally called "Personal Home Page" I was originally 19 inches long and crapped my diaper several times a day. PHP has grown and changed tremendously since those days. It's not the same codebase, at all: "Finding PHP/FI 2.0 still inefficient and lacking features they needed to power an eCommerce application they were developing for a university project, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski of Tel Aviv, Israel, began yet another complete rewrite of the underlying parser in 1997.".
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
    - jtreminio 14y ago
      I can't tell if you're trolling or simply ignorant about what the language actually currently is. PHP4 => PHP5 was a huge change, even more so if you compare PHP3 with PHP5.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
PommeDeTerre 14y ago
It's not an "empty, non-contributing comment" to those of us who have had to use PHP, especially after years of using far better languages. It rings especially true to us who have seen the horror systems implemented in PHP can be.
- shaldengeki 14y ago
  I feel as though we ought to hold our comments to higher standards than "expresses a strong negative opinion with no supporting evidence or reasoning". Maybe that's just me? It certainly feels strange that this sort of comment is being defended when the same comment with PHP replaced by Python/Ruby/(Java/Coffee)script/Haskell/C/C++ would be universally reviled.
  - PommeDeTerre 14y ago
    I don't think that the supporting evidence needs to be explicitly stated. Those of us who have used PHP before inherently know why he posted what he posted. The evidence and reasoning is in our past experience with the language, and it's much stronger than a "citation" of some blog post or anything of that sort. It's quite telling that we don't see comments like that for other languages that often, if ever. Aside from perhaps JavaScript, no other mainstream programming language causes experienced programmers so much grief. No other language is so riddled with obvious deficiencies, and so problematic.
    - shaldengeki 14y ago
      I hardly think that you and he speak for "those of us who have used PHP before", and to pretend that you do seems awfully arrogant on your part. I definitely don't share your sentiments, that's for sure! Even if you did speak for everyone who'd used PHP before, I don't think this comment is in any way useful or productive - are we all just supposed to take it on faith that every person who has a strong negative opinion on something speaks for everyone who's familiar with the topic? It seems to me that this is precisely against the spirit of HN (and reasoned discussion in general). So yes, I think that if you're going to make a comment like "PHP needs to die" and want to contribute something meaningful to the discussion, you're expected to elaborate on why you think that way. It's surprising to me that you're even trying to say otherwise. I'm not sure what to make of your assertion that the existence of a vocal group of PHP haters indicates that "PHP needs to die". I'll admit the language has its warts, but the hatred directed at PHP on HN seems way out of proportion to any other programming community I've been to, and out of proportion to the actual deficiencies with the language. And I don't really think that it makes sense to call PHP a "cancer" or to say that the existence of PHP is a problem; it's not as if we shun and shame programmers when they try to migrate from PHP to other languages, and it's not as if PHP paradigms are "infiltrating" other languages.
Tichy 14y ago
I admit I only now followed the link to the article, that is how biased I am. Turns out it is an article that basically says "we have no idea how to get out of the mess we created". How much content is in that? I stand by my statement... Is it not a valid opinion to sometimes say it is time for a thing to die? Why keep investing in hopeless tech?
- cies 14y ago
  > Why keep investing in hopeless tech? Because your codebase relies on it. Death will be hard for any mainstream language (proof: COBOL), especially open source ones. It might find not many new projects are started in it.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    So you would upvote an article about "COBOL needs a new vision" on HN?
    - raylu 14y ago
      I don't think that follows from what he said.
    - cies 14y ago
      PHP and COBOL both cannot change vision after so many years, that's my whole point.
- memla 14y ago
  There is some value in comments like yours. It brings to light just how many of these PHP bashing statements are biased and uninformed knee-jerk reactions, and therefore, should not be taken seriously by any rational person.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    How do my comments reveal how informed I am? You know nothing about my experiences with PHP. Anyway, don't bother - I'll let you own your little PHP discussion now, moving on. My comments on HN won't stop the calamity anyway.

benatkin 14y ago

Your comment made me curious about it and I see that Tichy has about 15K in karma. If he and a hundred people like him quit HN it would probably fix a lot of what's wrong with it.

josh2600 14y ago
This is irrelevant and does not add to the discussion. Just like Reddit, Karma is not intended to say "my voice has more weight than yours". Karma is a way of letting people know you agree with them, but, just as in a court of law, if you can find one person willing to speak the truth they can stand strong in a house of lies. Long and short, PHP is going to continue for some time, (just like COBOL, just like assembly) and wishing it was dead is about as effective as a life-savings program subsidized by the Tooth Fairy.
Tichy 14y ago
I got curious, too. The last comment you made before this one was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5008026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5008026 Very constructive :-)

justizin 14y ago

Questioning the value of a technology which inhabits the technology industry much like a cancer is not empty. PHP needed a vision 15 years ago. It was originally called "Personal Home Page" and intended to only slightly extend the functionality of Server-Side Includes. People tend to forget that.

jtreminio 14y ago
> PHP needs to die That comment is extremely insightful. How did I not see this? > It was originally called "Personal Home Page" I was originally 19 inches long and crapped my diaper several times a day. PHP has grown and changed tremendously since those days. It's not the same codebase, at all: "Finding PHP/FI 2.0 still inefficient and lacking features they needed to power an eCommerce application they were developing for a university project, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski of Tel Aviv, Israel, began yet another complete rewrite of the underlying parser in 1997.".
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - jtreminio 14y ago
    I can't tell if you're trolling or simply ignorant about what the language actually currently is. PHP4 => PHP5 was a huge change, even more so if you compare PHP3 with PHP5.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]

PommeDeTerre 14y ago

It's not an "empty, non-contributing comment" to those of us who have had to use PHP, especially after years of using far better languages. It rings especially true to us who have seen the horror systems implemented in PHP can be.

shaldengeki 14y ago
I feel as though we ought to hold our comments to higher standards than "expresses a strong negative opinion with no supporting evidence or reasoning". Maybe that's just me? It certainly feels strange that this sort of comment is being defended when the same comment with PHP replaced by Python/Ruby/(Java/Coffee)script/Haskell/C/C++ would be universally reviled.
- PommeDeTerre 14y ago
  I don't think that the supporting evidence needs to be explicitly stated. Those of us who have used PHP before inherently know why he posted what he posted. The evidence and reasoning is in our past experience with the language, and it's much stronger than a "citation" of some blog post or anything of that sort. It's quite telling that we don't see comments like that for other languages that often, if ever. Aside from perhaps JavaScript, no other mainstream programming language causes experienced programmers so much grief. No other language is so riddled with obvious deficiencies, and so problematic.
  - shaldengeki 14y ago
    I hardly think that you and he speak for "those of us who have used PHP before", and to pretend that you do seems awfully arrogant on your part. I definitely don't share your sentiments, that's for sure! Even if you did speak for everyone who'd used PHP before, I don't think this comment is in any way useful or productive - are we all just supposed to take it on faith that every person who has a strong negative opinion on something speaks for everyone who's familiar with the topic? It seems to me that this is precisely against the spirit of HN (and reasoned discussion in general). So yes, I think that if you're going to make a comment like "PHP needs to die" and want to contribute something meaningful to the discussion, you're expected to elaborate on why you think that way. It's surprising to me that you're even trying to say otherwise. I'm not sure what to make of your assertion that the existence of a vocal group of PHP haters indicates that "PHP needs to die". I'll admit the language has its warts, but the hatred directed at PHP on HN seems way out of proportion to any other programming community I've been to, and out of proportion to the actual deficiencies with the language. And I don't really think that it makes sense to call PHP a "cancer" or to say that the existence of PHP is a problem; it's not as if we shun and shame programmers when they try to migrate from PHP to other languages, and it's not as if PHP paradigms are "infiltrating" other languages.

Tichy 14y ago

I admit I only now followed the link to the article, that is how biased I am. Turns out it is an article that basically says "we have no idea how to get out of the mess we created". How much content is in that? I stand by my statement... Is it not a valid opinion to sometimes say it is time for a thing to die? Why keep investing in hopeless tech?

cies 14y ago
> Why keep investing in hopeless tech? Because your codebase relies on it. Death will be hard for any mainstream language (proof: COBOL), especially open source ones. It might find not many new projects are started in it.
- Tichy 14y ago
  So you would upvote an article about "COBOL needs a new vision" on HN?
  - raylu 14y ago
    I don't think that follows from what he said.
  - cies 14y ago
    PHP and COBOL both cannot change vision after so many years, that's my whole point.
memla 14y ago
There is some value in comments like yours. It brings to light just how many of these PHP bashing statements are biased and uninformed knee-jerk reactions, and therefore, should not be taken seriously by any rational person.
- Tichy 14y ago
  How do my comments reveal how informed I am? You know nothing about my experiences with PHP. Anyway, don't bother - I'll let you own your little PHP discussion now, moving on. My comments on HN won't stop the calamity anyway.