6 ms·

Overall you're right, this is what irritates me about almost any PHP thread as well. Almost no HNer would go into, say, a C++ thread, spit on it and advertise P

by Udo 13y ago

Overall you're right, this is what irritates me about almost any PHP thread as well. Almost no HNer would go into, say, a C++ thread, spit on it and advertise Python. But yet the same thing is happening regularly with PHP. Then again, I was pleasantly surprised we don't have that in this thread (yet). However, I don't think this is a worthwhile URL to point to on the grounds of near-irrelevance. There are no major new features being released here.

pearjuice 13y ago
>Then again, I was pleasantly surprised we don't have that in this thread (yet). By any chance, do you have "show dead" turned off? Because you are missing out.
- Udo 13y ago
  Ooops, you're right :) But those are dead for a reason, I wouldn't include them when judging a thread anyway.
astrodust 13y ago
The reason Python people don't go into a C++ thread is because the C++ people will take care of themselves, getting into bitter trench warfare over wether X feature was a good idea, a great idea, or the worst idea ever. PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl and C# have a lot of overlap in terms of what they do, but the overlap between C++ and Python is way smaller. C#, C++ and Java have much more in common. There are some things that C++ is very good at, where the alternative is usually C, something most would prefer to avoid. There's nothing that PHP is very good at that Python, Ruby, Perl or C# can't do nearly as well. That's why it attracts so much criticism.
- ericd 13y ago
  Ease of deployment? Nothing really compares to mod_php
  - M4N14C 13y ago
    Passenger. It's a thing and it works great.
  - eevee 13y ago
    This is a huge problem, and has the added wrinkle that all the people qualified to solve it won't, because it doesn't apply to the stuff they're deploying and they're clever enough to not need it solved anyway.
    - rofl 13y ago
      This is a huge problem in you if you don't know how to use your tool as a developer. PHP is just a tool. If you don't like this tool called PHP, use another tool like Snake or Python or whatever, and be happy. Have you seen a top carpenter ever to go to another carpenter to complain about the hammer used by the other carpenter? Edit: Formatting
      - eevee 13y ago
        I think you're confused. The huge problem is that other languages don't have anything for deployment that looks as easy as mod_php. And yes, all manner of professions grumble amongst themselves that newcomers are using inferior tools. Find some professional photographers and ask what they think of phone cameras.
        rofl 13y ago
        The huge problem is you are complaining about tools used by other developers. Pick up tools that work best for you and let others choose tools that work best for them. There is no inferior tool in this world. You select a tool based on your need, affordability and choice. The important part is not the tool itself, it is what you make with your tool. We remember Leonardo da Vinci for his creations, not for the tools he had used to make those creations happen. As of now, the most popular cameras in Flickr community are Apple iPhone 5, Apple iPhone 4S and Apple iPhone 4. All of these are phone cameras. You can see awesome photographs taken with these cameras. If you make a rule to accept photographs taken only using expensive DSLRs, sites like Flickr will not exist. And the world will be little less beautiful without sites like Flickr. By the way, Flickr is also powered by PHP.
- Udo 13y ago
  ...and there we go. I chose this example to illustrate that all languages have individual strengths (yes, even PHP) and it doesn't make any sense to go and shit all over something you don't like while advertising your favorite stuff. It's bad style. I don't see any PHP people coming into RoR security vulnerability threads just to have a field day, but vice versa this happens all the time. Admittedly, I could have chosen C++ and Go instead of Python, but in the end it doesn't make much of a difference. I've used a large number of languages and environments over the years, and I liked a lot of them. Stop forcing people into one camp only.
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    I don't understand the hate of PHP (or any language for that matter), I've never really gotten a good feel for why people are like this, the best I've come up with is "If someone invests 100's of hours learning X, they then feel the need to defend that investment in X or they made a bad choice". The other thing I don't get is the need to identify with a language or framework. My current project is in PHP (Laravel based, absolutely lovely framework last time I used a technology this fun was learning Delphi/VCL after slogging against MFC) except all functional and integration tests are written in Python (Selenium/WebDriver), Python is also used for 80% of my shell stuff (if it's more than 10 lines it gets written in Python). I'm not attached to anyone technology anymore, I chose PHP for this project because I'd spent two years mostly working with it at work and after doing a couple of small projects in Laravel I got a liking for it.
    - astrodust 13y ago
      People hate on PHP for a number of reasons, and that's why it's unusually unpopular. Here's my (highly subjective) take on why. The barrier to entry for that language is extremely low, that is anyone who can manage to FTP a file to a server that has a bit of PHP in it can as much as consider themselves a "PHP programmer". This means there's an awful lot of extremely low quality PHP code out there written by people who didn't know better. Secondly the language itself is so dizzyingly confused, where there's literally thousands of methods in the root namespace, and there's no pervading design pattern. Arguments appear in random orders, terminology changes, and functions from C, not exactly known for being programmer friendly, are simply ported, warts and all. Then there's the problem with deployment, where PHP hosts usually have a woefully out of date version of PHP and many of the extensions that are standard have been disabled for reasons that are never entirely clear. This means writing PHP code that can be deployed on more than one host is extremely frustrating, often leading to writing it for the lowest common denominator just to avoid support issues. Plus, there's this pervasive attitude amongst the PHP developers that frameworks are a bad thing, leading to enormous amounts of badly written re-inventions of things. People constantly write their own third-rate ORM, implement user authentication that's practically a check-list of what not to do, and seem to have a talent for mashing together different concerns in the same file. This boils down to a nearly complete lack of leadership in the PHP world as to "how to do things properly". So long as the poisonously bad, brain-damaging w3schools is the go-to source of knowledge for PHP developers, things will only get worse. If you like PHP for whatever reason, and surely some people do, the most important thing to help promote that platform is to be vigilant about stomping out bad development practices and setting a good example for other developers by explaining how to do things correctly using modern techniques. This sort of outreach is taken for granted in the Python, Ruby or Perl communities which go out of their way to support aspiring developers. In the PHP world, it's full of nomads that prefer to go it alone.
- nivla 13y ago
  > There's nothing that PHP is very good at that Python, Ruby, Perl or C# can't do nearly as well. That is a little bit of an overstatement. Php is good at a lot of things that others aren't. Most of all ease of use and deployment. It MAY also be faster than other languages in certain circumstances. Example [1]. All in all, choose what you are comfortable with and what you feel is right for the job. [1] http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=python&lang2=php http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?te...
- bliti 13y ago
  >There's nothing that PHP is very good at that Python, Ruby, Perl or C# can't do nearly as well. That's why it attracts so much criticism. PHP does have a very important thing going for it. Its super easy to throw in a PHP script on s cheap webhost. No configuration needed, and if you need database access, there are many libraries that are simply a file drop, and include_once away. Sure, its not perfect. But no language is.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    If all you have is FTP, which is basically the fax machine of the internet, then yeah, PHP is easier to "deploy". For anything more serious you'll need a deployment tool. It's nice that Python (fab) and Ruby (cap) have native deployment platforms with robust command-line tools and version control integration. That, to me, makes them far easier.
eevee 13y ago
Right, because we'd spit on it and advertise Rust or Go.
adventured 13y ago
No doubt tech fashionistas tend to be as obnoxious as the same elitist attitude applied anywhere else.

by Udo 13y ago

pearjuice 13y ago

>Then again, I was pleasantly surprised we don't have that in this thread (yet). By any chance, do you have "show dead" turned off? Because you are missing out.

Udo 13y ago
Ooops, you're right :) But those are dead for a reason, I wouldn't include them when judging a thread anyway.

astrodust 13y ago

The reason Python people don't go into a C++ thread is because the C++ people will take care of themselves, getting into bitter trench warfare over wether X feature was a good idea, a great idea, or the worst idea ever. PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl and C# have a lot of overlap in terms of what they do, but the overlap between C++ and Python is way smaller. C#, C++ and Java have much more in common. There are some things that C++ is very good at, where the alternative is usually C, something most would prefer to avoid. There's nothing that PHP is very good at that Python, Ruby, Perl or C# can't do nearly as well. That's why it attracts so much criticism.

ericd 13y ago
Ease of deployment? Nothing really compares to mod_php
- M4N14C 13y ago
  Passenger. It's a thing and it works great.
- eevee 13y ago
  This is a huge problem, and has the added wrinkle that all the people qualified to solve it won't, because it doesn't apply to the stuff they're deploying and they're clever enough to not need it solved anyway.
  - rofl 13y ago
    This is a huge problem in you if you don't know how to use your tool as a developer. PHP is just a tool. If you don't like this tool called PHP, use another tool like Snake or Python or whatever, and be happy. Have you seen a top carpenter ever to go to another carpenter to complain about the hammer used by the other carpenter? Edit: Formatting
    - eevee 13y ago
      I think you're confused. The huge problem is that other languages don't have anything for deployment that looks as easy as mod_php. And yes, all manner of professions grumble amongst themselves that newcomers are using inferior tools. Find some professional photographers and ask what they think of phone cameras.
      - rofl 13y ago
        The huge problem is you are complaining about tools used by other developers. Pick up tools that work best for you and let others choose tools that work best for them. There is no inferior tool in this world. You select a tool based on your need, affordability and choice. The important part is not the tool itself, it is what you make with your tool. We remember Leonardo da Vinci for his creations, not for the tools he had used to make those creations happen. As of now, the most popular cameras in Flickr community are Apple iPhone 5, Apple iPhone 4S and Apple iPhone 4. All of these are phone cameras. You can see awesome photographs taken with these cameras. If you make a rule to accept photographs taken only using expensive DSLRs, sites like Flickr will not exist. And the world will be little less beautiful without sites like Flickr. By the way, Flickr is also powered by PHP.
Udo 13y ago
...and there we go. I chose this example to illustrate that all languages have individual strengths (yes, even PHP) and it doesn't make any sense to go and shit all over something you don't like while advertising your favorite stuff. It's bad style. I don't see any PHP people coming into RoR security vulnerability threads just to have a field day, but vice versa this happens all the time. Admittedly, I could have chosen C++ and Go instead of Python, but in the end it doesn't make much of a difference. I've used a large number of languages and environments over the years, and I liked a lot of them. Stop forcing people into one camp only.
- noir_lord 13y ago
  I don't understand the hate of PHP (or any language for that matter), I've never really gotten a good feel for why people are like this, the best I've come up with is "If someone invests 100's of hours learning X, they then feel the need to defend that investment in X or they made a bad choice". The other thing I don't get is the need to identify with a language or framework. My current project is in PHP (Laravel based, absolutely lovely framework last time I used a technology this fun was learning Delphi/VCL after slogging against MFC) except all functional and integration tests are written in Python (Selenium/WebDriver), Python is also used for 80% of my shell stuff (if it's more than 10 lines it gets written in Python). I'm not attached to anyone technology anymore, I chose PHP for this project because I'd spent two years mostly working with it at work and after doing a couple of small projects in Laravel I got a liking for it.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    People hate on PHP for a number of reasons, and that's why it's unusually unpopular. Here's my (highly subjective) take on why. The barrier to entry for that language is extremely low, that is anyone who can manage to FTP a file to a server that has a bit of PHP in it can as much as consider themselves a "PHP programmer". This means there's an awful lot of extremely low quality PHP code out there written by people who didn't know better. Secondly the language itself is so dizzyingly confused, where there's literally thousands of methods in the root namespace, and there's no pervading design pattern. Arguments appear in random orders, terminology changes, and functions from C, not exactly known for being programmer friendly, are simply ported, warts and all. Then there's the problem with deployment, where PHP hosts usually have a woefully out of date version of PHP and many of the extensions that are standard have been disabled for reasons that are never entirely clear. This means writing PHP code that can be deployed on more than one host is extremely frustrating, often leading to writing it for the lowest common denominator just to avoid support issues. Plus, there's this pervasive attitude amongst the PHP developers that frameworks are a bad thing, leading to enormous amounts of badly written re-inventions of things. People constantly write their own third-rate ORM, implement user authentication that's practically a check-list of what not to do, and seem to have a talent for mashing together different concerns in the same file. This boils down to a nearly complete lack of leadership in the PHP world as to "how to do things properly". So long as the poisonously bad, brain-damaging w3schools is the go-to source of knowledge for PHP developers, things will only get worse. If you like PHP for whatever reason, and surely some people do, the most important thing to help promote that platform is to be vigilant about stomping out bad development practices and setting a good example for other developers by explaining how to do things correctly using modern techniques. This sort of outreach is taken for granted in the Python, Ruby or Perl communities which go out of their way to support aspiring developers. In the PHP world, it's full of nomads that prefer to go it alone.
nivla 13y ago
> There's nothing that PHP is very good at that Python, Ruby, Perl or C# can't do nearly as well. That is a little bit of an overstatement. Php is good at a lot of things that others aren't. Most of all ease of use and deployment. It MAY also be faster than other languages in certain circumstances. Example [1]. All in all, choose what you are comfortable with and what you feel is right for the job. [1] http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=python&lang2=php http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?te...
bliti 13y ago
>There's nothing that PHP is very good at that Python, Ruby, Perl or C# can't do nearly as well. That's why it attracts so much criticism. PHP does have a very important thing going for it. Its super easy to throw in a PHP script on s cheap webhost. No configuration needed, and if you need database access, there are many libraries that are simply a file drop, and include_once away. Sure, its not perfect. But no language is.
- astrodust 13y ago
  If all you have is FTP, which is basically the fax machine of the internet, then yeah, PHP is easier to "deploy". For anything more serious you'll need a deployment tool. It's nice that Python (fab) and Ruby (cap) have native deployment platforms with robust command-line tools and version control integration. That, to me, makes them far easier.

eevee 13y ago

Right, because we'd spit on it and advertise Rust or Go.

adventured 13y ago

No doubt tech fashionistas tend to be as obnoxious as the same elitist attitude applied anywhere else.