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The codebase of Wordpress is an utterly terrible, offensive, kludgy, hacked-together mess of spaghetti code. The last time I looked at the internals it still la

The codebase of Wordpress is an utterly terrible, offensive, kludgy, hacked-together mess of spaghetti code. The last time I looked at the internals it still lacked a coherent MVC structure. There are big, good things built with PHP, written the right way with solid software engineering principles, but Wordpress is not one of them.

icelancer 14y ago
Yeah, it's very evident in the fact that no one uses it, too. PHP sucks.
- krichman 14y ago
  If number of users was equivalent to quality you would be correct. But it isn't. Under your argument, Wal-Mart is a purveyor of family heirlooms.
  - jasonlotito 14y ago
    The number of users is not equivalent to quality. It's an indication of quality. As for quality... No, Wal-Mart isn't a purveyor of items with the qualities of being expensive, extremely limited, and old. Quality is a subjective word, defined by different aspects. Just as I can, with justification, define Apple as a purveyor of low-quality hardware, I can say equally it sells high-quality software.
    - mercurial 14y ago
      As you say, quality is defined by a number of factors. I'd say that a good, high-level general purpose programming language should be: - coherent - non-verbose - provide solid high-level abstractions - safe - have a solid standard library - optionally, easy to get started with Of all these qualities, PHP is geared toward "ease of access" with a sprinkling of non-verbosity, and fails mostly or totally in the other categories. Just like the popularity of the Millenium trilogy does not mean Stieg Larsson can write, the popularity of PHP is more an indication of its low barrier to entry (especially combined with widespread hosting support) than anything else.
      - jasonlotito 14y ago
        > Just like the popularity of the Millenium trilogy does not mean Stieg Larsson can write Technically, it does. =) I'm surprised you wouldn't consider the license a language is released under as one of the factors. Or maybe you do, and you forgot to list it. And therein lies the issue: the number of people are indicative of certain qualities, qualities you might not consider important, or might not weigh as highly as other people. I love erlang, but I'd be hard pressed to use erlang for as many projects as I would like. Not because of failings of the language itself, but because certain qualities it does not possess (ubiquity for one, which affects so many other areas).
    - krichman 14y ago
      It's not even an indication of quality, it's an indication that many people use it. I guess you can quibble about definitions all day if you like, and you can take "family heirlooms" literally instead of metaphorically as it was intended, but that won't make Wal-Mart a seller of quality items nor will it make PHP a well-designed language under any sort of definition that is relevant to reality. And, honestly, if the only thing we're going to argue about is whether or not quantity equals/implies quality and the definition of "quality", the argument against PHP has already won.

icelancer 14y ago

Yeah, it's very evident in the fact that no one uses it, too. PHP sucks.

krichman 14y ago
If number of users was equivalent to quality you would be correct. But it isn't. Under your argument, Wal-Mart is a purveyor of family heirlooms.
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  The number of users is not equivalent to quality. It's an indication of quality. As for quality... No, Wal-Mart isn't a purveyor of items with the qualities of being expensive, extremely limited, and old. Quality is a subjective word, defined by different aspects. Just as I can, with justification, define Apple as a purveyor of low-quality hardware, I can say equally it sells high-quality software.
  - mercurial 14y ago
    As you say, quality is defined by a number of factors. I'd say that a good, high-level general purpose programming language should be: - coherent - non-verbose - provide solid high-level abstractions - safe - have a solid standard library - optionally, easy to get started with Of all these qualities, PHP is geared toward "ease of access" with a sprinkling of non-verbosity, and fails mostly or totally in the other categories. Just like the popularity of the Millenium trilogy does not mean Stieg Larsson can write, the popularity of PHP is more an indication of its low barrier to entry (especially combined with widespread hosting support) than anything else.
    - jasonlotito 14y ago
      > Just like the popularity of the Millenium trilogy does not mean Stieg Larsson can write Technically, it does. =) I'm surprised you wouldn't consider the license a language is released under as one of the factors. Or maybe you do, and you forgot to list it. And therein lies the issue: the number of people are indicative of certain qualities, qualities you might not consider important, or might not weigh as highly as other people. I love erlang, but I'd be hard pressed to use erlang for as many projects as I would like. Not because of failings of the language itself, but because certain qualities it does not possess (ubiquity for one, which affects so many other areas).
  - krichman 14y ago
    It's not even an indication of quality, it's an indication that many people use it. I guess you can quibble about definitions all day if you like, and you can take "family heirlooms" literally instead of metaphorically as it was intended, but that won't make Wal-Mart a seller of quality items nor will it make PHP a well-designed language under any sort of definition that is relevant to reality. And, honestly, if the only thing we're going to argue about is whether or not quantity equals/implies quality and the definition of "quality", the argument against PHP has already won.