5 ms·

Er, surely the whole point of the article is that they are making it so that more of the existing codebase will run. Their roadmap also includes making it easy

by RobAley 13y ago

Er, surely the whole point of the article is that they are making it so that more of the existing codebase will run. Their roadmap also includes making it easy to install on Linux and other platforms, so it may make inroads into "everywhere". If they can even achieve the first objective, then people can continue with the normal PHP runtime as usual in most places and switch to HHVM when they need better performance. Also, I find PHP a delight to program in. YMMV.

jeffasinger 13y ago
Newer PHP isn't too bad to program in, so long as everyone who ever will need to write a line of your code is relatively disciplined, and works to an agreed upon standard. However, your average codebase, written for PHP 5.0 or older, touched by many, mostly incompetent people over several years, is usually incredibly painful to work with.
- debacle 13y ago
  I haven't seen a PHP codebase that didn't run on 5.2 in years. If you don't support 5.2, that means your code is at least eight years old at this point, with no effort at all to upgrade. That's kind of scary. It'd be like captaining the SS Swiss Cheese.
  - andyhmltn 13y ago
    Sadly, I've seen companies that depend (like literally, if it were to fail the company would shut down) on a codebase that is on 5.0 :(
astrodust 13y ago
If you find "PHP a delight" you'd probably love a language with a sane design even more.
- mildtrepidation 13y ago
  As someone who did make such a change, I agree with this. I'm assuming the parent did not intend it as trolling, as I don't.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    I wish there were more stories of people who've gone "post-PHP", talking about their experiences. "PHP developers", by which I mean developers that know PHP and PHP only, are the first to throw a fit when their language is criticized. This is especially awkward as most PHP developers don't even observe best practices for developing with PHP, insisting on using obsolete versions, write hazardously bad SQL queries with so much moaning about how it's not a big deal, and get absolutely irate when you suggest they use an application platform instead of rolling everything by hand. There's something to be said for using a language where the community encourages people do to it properly, and everyone's trying to make an effort to move forward together.
    - jcroll 13y ago
      The PHP community is moving forward and trying to do things the right way. Checkout http://www.phptherightway.com/ http://www.phptherightway.com/ Also checkout the Symfony components and how many large open source PHP projects are using them: * Symfony Framework * Drupal * Laravel * Silex * phpBB * Guzzle Then there's Composer (which also uses Symfony components) and PHP-FIG. The list goes on. What you need is more modern PHP developers advocating on boards like HN how good PHP has become, not how much better other ecosystems are than what PHP was five years ago.
      - astrodust 13y ago
        A small fragment of the PHP community is doing things better than the rest, but it still seems like there's a lot of untamed wilderness out there. StackOverflow is filled with people who've suffered badly at the hands of w3schools and various atrocious YouTube tutorials which perpetuate the absolute worst practices from the 1990s. Perhaps the problem isn't having good resources so much as getting rid of the bad ones. PHP still has a long, long way to go. The rampant infighting in the core team, the completely incoherent API and language design, the lack of innovation on core libraries, none of this is very encouraging.

by RobAley 13y ago

jeffasinger 13y ago

Newer PHP isn't too bad to program in, so long as everyone who ever will need to write a line of your code is relatively disciplined, and works to an agreed upon standard. However, your average codebase, written for PHP 5.0 or older, touched by many, mostly incompetent people over several years, is usually incredibly painful to work with.

debacle 13y ago
I haven't seen a PHP codebase that didn't run on 5.2 in years. If you don't support 5.2, that means your code is at least eight years old at this point, with no effort at all to upgrade. That's kind of scary. It'd be like captaining the SS Swiss Cheese.
- andyhmltn 13y ago
  Sadly, I've seen companies that depend (like literally, if it were to fail the company would shut down) on a codebase that is on 5.0 :(

astrodust 13y ago

If you find "PHP a delight" you'd probably love a language with a sane design even more.

mildtrepidation 13y ago
As someone who did make such a change, I agree with this. I'm assuming the parent did not intend it as trolling, as I don't.
- astrodust 13y ago
  I wish there were more stories of people who've gone "post-PHP", talking about their experiences. "PHP developers", by which I mean developers that know PHP and PHP only, are the first to throw a fit when their language is criticized. This is especially awkward as most PHP developers don't even observe best practices for developing with PHP, insisting on using obsolete versions, write hazardously bad SQL queries with so much moaning about how it's not a big deal, and get absolutely irate when you suggest they use an application platform instead of rolling everything by hand. There's something to be said for using a language where the community encourages people do to it properly, and everyone's trying to make an effort to move forward together.
  - jcroll 13y ago
    The PHP community is moving forward and trying to do things the right way. Checkout http://www.phptherightway.com/ http://www.phptherightway.com/ Also checkout the Symfony components and how many large open source PHP projects are using them: * Symfony Framework * Drupal * Laravel * Silex * phpBB * Guzzle Then there's Composer (which also uses Symfony components) and PHP-FIG. The list goes on. What you need is more modern PHP developers advocating on boards like HN how good PHP has become, not how much better other ecosystems are than what PHP was five years ago.
    - astrodust 13y ago
      A small fragment of the PHP community is doing things better than the rest, but it still seems like there's a lot of untamed wilderness out there. StackOverflow is filled with people who've suffered badly at the hands of w3schools and various atrocious YouTube tutorials which perpetuate the absolute worst practices from the 1990s. Perhaps the problem isn't having good resources so much as getting rid of the bad ones. PHP still has a long, long way to go. The rampant infighting in the core team, the completely incoherent API and language design, the lack of innovation on core libraries, none of this is very encouraging.