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Considering all its problems, I wonder why PHP has not been forked already in a saner language. I mean who in 2014 is going to start a new project in PHP apart

Considering all its problems, I wonder why PHP has not been forked already in a saner language. I mean who in 2014 is going to start a new project in PHP apart from people that can't be bothered to learn something else ?

ssiddharth 13y ago
PHP 5.3+ isn't really as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, it's not flashy, but it can definitely get the job done. I've been exploring Laravel lately and it's certainly a lot of fun.
tiquorsj 13y ago
Maybe people who already build and maintain apps in one of the most widely used language on the web?
dnzm 13y ago
> I mean who in 2014 is going to start a new project in PHP apart from people that can't be bothered to learn something else ? People who refrain from having the standard knee-jerk "lol php is bad" reaction whenever it's being mentioned. Of course the language has its warts and pitfalls, but then again, most languages do, and it's a fairly usable tool for a fair amount of jobs. Care to show me a language with the same adoption rate (especially among hosters, which is something a lot of web devs simply have to keep in mind), ease of getting a project from zero to gone live?
ohwp 13y ago
For me the pros/cons balance is still heavy on the pros side. So yeah I'm starting PHP projects in 2014. And as in every other language your own skills are the biggest bottleneck.
lucian1900 13y ago
It's easier to just use one of the many other better languages.
jbrooksuk 13y ago
Frameworks such as Laravel has made this much less of a problem.
- Zelphyr 13y ago
  Frameworks replace one problem with seven others.
tim333 13y ago
For me the main reason to use PHP rather than say Python is that there is a load of not too bad open source stuff out there that you can use and modify.
- tragic 13y ago
  Uh... http://pypi.python.org/ http://pypi.python.org/ - 40,037 packages http://rubygems.org/ http://rubygems.org/ - 70,678 packages http://www.cpan.org/ http://www.cpan.org/ - 129,447 packages http://packagist.org http://packagist.org - 24,244 packages There's a lot of open source code out there for all major languages. And, based on the canonical package indexes, a lot less for PHP than the other main contenders in the OSS web-ready scripting space (although, obviously, PHP is very domain-specific compared to the others I've listed, so the comparison is not completely fair - even with that caveat, however, I would expect Perl and Ruby to have PHP licked). There are compelling reasons to use PHP - omnipresence, ease of deployment - but this isn't one of them.
  - krapp 13y ago
    To be fair, Composer can handle a lot more than just the list on Packagist, so I don't how "canonical" Packagist really is for php, as opposed to being the "default", if it matters. https://getcomposer.org/doc/05-repositories.md#types https://getcomposer.org/doc/05-repositories.md#types Though I'd agree it is still a weak argument in favor of PHP.
  - tim333 13y ago
    Maybe but the couple of jobs I did / am thinking of doing were putting up a jobs board and a dating site. I found jobberbase for jobs and osdate for dating which are free and you could stick up there and modify a bit. Are there equivalents in Python say? Or Ruby?
- pekk 13y ago
  The same thing is true of Python, though. Use PHP if you want, but not because Python doesn't have open source stuff out there
jbeja 13y ago
My cients's hosting providers only support PHP, so yeah...
Xdes 13y ago
Check out Hack for HHVM[0][1][2]. It's a lot saner than PHP, but it's not documented or well known outside Facebook. [0]: Strangle Loop 2013: Keith Adams, Facebook: Taking PHP Seriously https://raw.github.com/strangeloop/StrangeLoop2013/master/slides/sessions/Adams-TakingPHPSeriously.pdf https://raw.github.com/strangeloop/StrangeLoop2013/master/sl... [1]: CUFP 2013: Julien Verlaguet, Facebook: Analyzing PHP statically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWNjFagR9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWNjFagR9k [2]: HHVM and Hack – Can We Expect Them to Replace PHP? http://www.sitepoint.com/hhvm-hack-part-1/ http://www.sitepoint.com/hhvm-hack-part-1/

ssiddharth 13y ago

PHP 5.3+ isn't really as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, it's not flashy, but it can definitely get the job done. I've been exploring Laravel lately and it's certainly a lot of fun.

tiquorsj 13y ago

Maybe people who already build and maintain apps in one of the most widely used language on the web?

dnzm 13y ago

> I mean who in 2014 is going to start a new project in PHP apart from people that can't be bothered to learn something else ? People who refrain from having the standard knee-jerk "lol php is bad" reaction whenever it's being mentioned. Of course the language has its warts and pitfalls, but then again, most languages do, and it's a fairly usable tool for a fair amount of jobs. Care to show me a language with the same adoption rate (especially among hosters, which is something a lot of web devs simply have to keep in mind), ease of getting a project from zero to gone live?

ohwp 13y ago

For me the pros/cons balance is still heavy on the pros side. So yeah I'm starting PHP projects in 2014. And as in every other language your own skills are the biggest bottleneck.

lucian1900 13y ago

It's easier to just use one of the many other better languages.

jbrooksuk 13y ago

Frameworks such as Laravel has made this much less of a problem.

Zelphyr 13y ago
Frameworks replace one problem with seven others.

tim333 13y ago

For me the main reason to use PHP rather than say Python is that there is a load of not too bad open source stuff out there that you can use and modify.

tragic 13y ago
Uh... http://pypi.python.org/ http://pypi.python.org/ - 40,037 packages http://rubygems.org/ http://rubygems.org/ - 70,678 packages http://www.cpan.org/ http://www.cpan.org/ - 129,447 packages http://packagist.org http://packagist.org - 24,244 packages There's a lot of open source code out there for all major languages. And, based on the canonical package indexes, a lot less for PHP than the other main contenders in the OSS web-ready scripting space (although, obviously, PHP is very domain-specific compared to the others I've listed, so the comparison is not completely fair - even with that caveat, however, I would expect Perl and Ruby to have PHP licked). There are compelling reasons to use PHP - omnipresence, ease of deployment - but this isn't one of them.
- krapp 13y ago
  To be fair, Composer can handle a lot more than just the list on Packagist, so I don't how "canonical" Packagist really is for php, as opposed to being the "default", if it matters. https://getcomposer.org/doc/05-repositories.md#types https://getcomposer.org/doc/05-repositories.md#types Though I'd agree it is still a weak argument in favor of PHP.
- tim333 13y ago
  Maybe but the couple of jobs I did / am thinking of doing were putting up a jobs board and a dating site. I found jobberbase for jobs and osdate for dating which are free and you could stick up there and modify a bit. Are there equivalents in Python say? Or Ruby?
pekk 13y ago
The same thing is true of Python, though. Use PHP if you want, but not because Python doesn't have open source stuff out there

jbeja 13y ago

My cients's hosting providers only support PHP, so yeah...

Xdes 13y ago

Check out Hack for HHVM[0][1][2]. It's a lot saner than PHP, but it's not documented or well known outside Facebook. [0]: Strangle Loop 2013: Keith Adams, Facebook: Taking PHP Seriously https://raw.github.com/strangeloop/StrangeLoop2013/master/slides/sessions/Adams-TakingPHPSeriously.pdf https://raw.github.com/strangeloop/StrangeLoop2013/master/sl... [1]: CUFP 2013: Julien Verlaguet, Facebook: Analyzing PHP statically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWNjFagR9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWNjFagR9k [2]: HHVM and Hack – Can We Expect Them to Replace PHP? http://www.sitepoint.com/hhvm-hack-part-1/ http://www.sitepoint.com/hhvm-hack-part-1/