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Arguments from popularity can be amusing when laden with sarcasm, but that doesn't make them valid arguments. I'd say PHP is and has been popular more because

Arguments from popularity can be amusing when laden with sarcasm, but that doesn't make them valid arguments. I'd say PHP is and has been popular more because it's easy to hire an army of self-trained "php developers" for peanuts than because it is a "good" language.

eksith 13y ago
I'd argue that PHP has been popular because it makes hiring a developer optional for the vast majority of folks who want to put up a website. In the days before Facebook et al. Your options were Geocities and family or a cheap shared host with apache and PHP3-4. When the most sophisticated portions of a site were a gallery and contact form, the "put files here, done" methodology is pretty hard to beat. It being a "bad language" is irrelevant for someone who's end result requirement is a functional page over technological purity. Disclosure: I develop mainly in C#
- judk 13y ago
  Facebook itself was PHP website thrown together without design!
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  I don't think we're saying different things. :)
knieveltech 13y ago
There was a time (and it wasn't terribly long ago) that "self trained" developers garnered additional respect in the community because they had the sand to go in and learn a system under their own power instead of having concepts spoon-fed to them in class. Academically trained developers were known first and foremost for over-engineering otherwise simple tasks and typically required two to four years in industry to break of bad habits.
saraid216 13y ago
> Arguments from popularity can be amusing when laden with sarcasm, but that doesn't make them valid arguments. Informal fallacies don't automatically invalidate the argument either. Informal fallacies are rhetorical red flags: they predict problematic logic, because they're generally used in place of actual logic: but unless you're talking about formal fallacies, the argument can still be valid. In this case, it depends entirely on whether or not you accept popularity as a valid metric for success or quality or whatnot: you're arguing whether or not the "P -> Q" premise is true or false, not whether or not the argument itself is valid. Because P is true.

eksith 13y ago

I'd argue that PHP has been popular because it makes hiring a developer optional for the vast majority of folks who want to put up a website. In the days before Facebook et al. Your options were Geocities and family or a cheap shared host with apache and PHP3-4. When the most sophisticated portions of a site were a gallery and contact form, the "put files here, done" methodology is pretty hard to beat. It being a "bad language" is irrelevant for someone who's end result requirement is a functional page over technological purity. Disclosure: I develop mainly in C#

judk 13y ago
Facebook itself was PHP website thrown together without design!
Iftheshoefits 13y ago
I don't think we're saying different things. :)

knieveltech 13y ago

There was a time (and it wasn't terribly long ago) that "self trained" developers garnered additional respect in the community because they had the sand to go in and learn a system under their own power instead of having concepts spoon-fed to them in class. Academically trained developers were known first and foremost for over-engineering otherwise simple tasks and typically required two to four years in industry to break of bad habits.

saraid216 13y ago

> Arguments from popularity can be amusing when laden with sarcasm, but that doesn't make them valid arguments. Informal fallacies don't automatically invalidate the argument either. Informal fallacies are rhetorical red flags: they predict problematic logic, because they're generally used in place of actual logic: but unless you're talking about formal fallacies, the argument can still be valid. In this case, it depends entirely on whether or not you accept popularity as a valid metric for success or quality or whatnot: you're arguing whether or not the "P -> Q" premise is true or false, not whether or not the argument itself is valid. Because P is true.