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I get this all the time, started with C and Java back in university well over 10 years ago, but after doing a few projects with PHP and starting a few personal

by yc1010 12y ago

I get this all the time, started with C and Java back in university well over 10 years ago, but after doing a few projects with PHP and starting a few personal projects (one of which became rather infamous years later lol) i got hooked In all this time there has been a huge change in the PHP world TBH if a "developer" cringes their nose at a very capable tool, just because it is not the latest "cool" thing, It tells me a lot about them.

dscrd 12y ago
>one of which became rather infamous years later lol mtgox? :) >TBH if a "developer" cringes their nose at a very capable tool, just because it is not the latest "cool" thing, It tells me a lot about them. This is called the straw man fallacy. You wrongly assume that the lack of coolness is why people dislike PHP and you dismiss the whole argument based on that. Doing great stuff with PHP is like building a skyscraper using nothing but a hammer and a screwdriver and a few rotten planks. It's the builder who's amazing (albeit a bit crazy), not the hammer, the screwdriver or the planks. Imagine what he might've made with proper equipment? Would you like to live in such a skyscraper?
- Joeri 12y ago
  Maybe I'm biased because I make PHP software for a living, but I would have to disagree PHP is harder to use properly than other languages. It has the duck typing abilities of javascript, and the class system of java (including rich reflection features). Yes, some things are weird, but no weirder than other languages. The type conversions are not weirder than javascript, and the function naming chaos is not weirder than C. I've programmed all those languages extensively, and I wouldn't say any of them are more productive than PHP. What PHP is for me, is a paper cup. It's modest, utilitarian, not cool or elegant, but definitely efficient, useful and ubiquitous.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    It has the duck typing abilities of javascript, and the class system of java Talk about a backhanded compliment :)
  - airtonix 12y ago
    and yet python does all that without being ugly.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    The fact that PHP manages to combine drawbacks from different languages without offering corresponding advantages is not an endorsement.
- yc1010 12y ago
  mtgox? :) ROFL :D (no tho in hindsight robbing half a billion and getting away with it doesnt seem like bad career path)
Zr40 12y ago
It's not about PHP being "uncool", it's about the many things in PHP being objectively wrong.[1] Of course it's perfectly possible to write good code in PHP, but compared to other languages, writing proper PHP requires a lot more effort. [1] http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
- ThomPete 12y ago
  Nothing is objectively wrong in computer languages or any other languages. If it had been objectively wrong then the language wouldn't have been useful at all. The purpose of a programming language is not to allow you to write beautiful code but to produce things. Everything else is a pseudo debate that is necessary at times but not as much as some would like.
- xrstf 12y ago
  Please stop sharing this blog post like it's the Holy Grail. It's full of nonsense and false information about PHP. Not that there aren't issues in PHP, but this assembly is just "PHP doesn't have feature X and doesn't behave like language Y, so it must be bad. I didn't bother reading the documentation or any code written after 1998.".
  - Mithaldu 12y ago
    Is ?: still left associative in PHP?
  - imakesnowflakes 12y ago
    Oh, documentation. It is still broken, even on the most basic level, I should say. http://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/comments/2md8c0/new_safe_casting_function_rfc_casting_10_to/cm3djvj http://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/comments/2md8c0/new_safe_cast...
  - joepie91_ 12y ago
    > nonsense and false information Such as?
joepie91_ 12y ago
Speaking as somebody who has done PHP for some 8-9 years, I still cringe my nose at it. See, the thing is, PHP has gotten better. That's not in dispute. The problem is that, even after it "has gotten better", it's still far behind most other options that are commonly in use, and still highly inconsistent and upredictable. It is rather telling in and of itself when you have to use "well, it has gotten better" as a crutch to argue that, at least, it meets a minimum standard of viability. Frameworks don't really solve this problem. Fundamentally, you're still working with a language that does some really weird things - things that are weird enough to cause near-untraceable bugs and completely unexpected vulnerabilities. You can slap a lot of abstraction onto it, and it does make it less unwieldy, but in the end you're still limited by what the language or platform has to offer you in terms of inherent consistency, predictability, and debuggability. Just take, for example, PHP's CGI-like nature. Yes, it is theoretically possible to have a long-running process, and it's theoretically possible to implement real-time services with it, but it's going to be a major headache and incredibly hard to maintain. The tools are just not really there. Any solution you come up with will, in the end, be a giant hack. Don't assume that somebody who cringes at PHP is just somebody who likes jumping on bandwagons. There are very real and rational reasons to dislike PHP, even (especially!) as an experienced PHP developer.
- airtonix 12y ago
  hey, remember if you turn your nose up at shitty languages and platforms, you're somehow revealing something bad about yourself. Not like the exemplary attitude of "awesome lets cut our wrists all day and open windows explorer to deploy"
- yc1010 12y ago
  PHP doesn't do EVERYTHING but it is good for surprisingly a lot of cases What happens when you have existing code in Java or python that does something you do not wish to reinvent the wheel with is you simply interface/bridge with from you PHP code. Right now I have 5 servers running python batch jobs processing some data (for a few months now) which is called by php with results being added to datastore for later access with php In the past I worked on an asset tracking system where we collected data from RFID readers, whole system was done in PHP with some glue Java and C code for more "to the bone" edge cases Everything I have done in PHP i could have done in C which I first learned and still use alot of, doesn't mean I want to spend my life wasting it on 90% of cases where a quick php script does the job within reasonable time I never claimed PHP is "awesome" or whatever you think I did, but it is a very capable language at getting things done fast, especially if you know what you are doing Yes there are armies of noobs giving PHP a bad name, but instead of turning your nose at them one is better helping them and showing them how to do things better
InclinedPlane 12y ago
I've done tons of PHP coding on various projects, some of which I'm quite proud of. That said, I will probably never stop cringing at the use of PHP for any project. It's a terrible tool in a huge number of ways, some of them fundamental. Yes, it's a functional tool, but mostly it's a competitively capable tool only because every other language/platform out there is also more or less equivalently terrible in some other way.
Hytosys 12y ago
>TBH if a "developer" cringes their nose at a very capable tool, just because it is not the latest "cool" thing, It tells me a lot about them. I doubt you could convince a developer to condense their opinion of PHP to "PHP isn't the latest cool thing, so I don't like it." As such, I posit you're being as judgmental and dismissive as your supposed adversary.
cageface 12y ago
We're stuck with one badly designed language on the frontend (Javascript), for reasons we can't really change now. But why on earth would you choose another badly designed language on the back end when you have so many better options? Stop being lazy and unprofessional and spend a month or two learning one of the many better commonly used web dev languages.

by yc1010 12y ago

dscrd 12y ago

>one of which became rather infamous years later lol mtgox? :) >TBH if a "developer" cringes their nose at a very capable tool, just because it is not the latest "cool" thing, It tells me a lot about them. This is called the straw man fallacy. You wrongly assume that the lack of coolness is why people dislike PHP and you dismiss the whole argument based on that. Doing great stuff with PHP is like building a skyscraper using nothing but a hammer and a screwdriver and a few rotten planks. It's the builder who's amazing (albeit a bit crazy), not the hammer, the screwdriver or the planks. Imagine what he might've made with proper equipment? Would you like to live in such a skyscraper?

Joeri 12y ago
Maybe I'm biased because I make PHP software for a living, but I would have to disagree PHP is harder to use properly than other languages. It has the duck typing abilities of javascript, and the class system of java (including rich reflection features). Yes, some things are weird, but no weirder than other languages. The type conversions are not weirder than javascript, and the function naming chaos is not weirder than C. I've programmed all those languages extensively, and I wouldn't say any of them are more productive than PHP. What PHP is for me, is a paper cup. It's modest, utilitarian, not cool or elegant, but definitely efficient, useful and ubiquitous.
- icebraining 12y ago
  It has the duck typing abilities of javascript, and the class system of java Talk about a backhanded compliment :)
- airtonix 12y ago
  and yet python does all that without being ugly.
- mercurial 12y ago
  The fact that PHP manages to combine drawbacks from different languages without offering corresponding advantages is not an endorsement.
yc1010 12y ago
mtgox? :) ROFL :D (no tho in hindsight robbing half a billion and getting away with it doesnt seem like bad career path)

Zr40 12y ago

It's not about PHP being "uncool", it's about the many things in PHP being objectively wrong.[1] Of course it's perfectly possible to write good code in PHP, but compared to other languages, writing proper PHP requires a lot more effort. [1] http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

ThomPete 12y ago
Nothing is objectively wrong in computer languages or any other languages. If it had been objectively wrong then the language wouldn't have been useful at all. The purpose of a programming language is not to allow you to write beautiful code but to produce things. Everything else is a pseudo debate that is necessary at times but not as much as some would like.
xrstf 12y ago
Please stop sharing this blog post like it's the Holy Grail. It's full of nonsense and false information about PHP. Not that there aren't issues in PHP, but this assembly is just "PHP doesn't have feature X and doesn't behave like language Y, so it must be bad. I didn't bother reading the documentation or any code written after 1998.".
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  Is ?: still left associative in PHP?
- imakesnowflakes 12y ago
  Oh, documentation. It is still broken, even on the most basic level, I should say. http://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/comments/2md8c0/new_safe_casting_function_rfc_casting_10_to/cm3djvj http://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/comments/2md8c0/new_safe_cast...
- joepie91_ 12y ago
  > nonsense and false information Such as?

joepie91_ 12y ago

Speaking as somebody who has done PHP for some 8-9 years, I still cringe my nose at it. See, the thing is, PHP has gotten better. That's not in dispute. The problem is that, even after it "has gotten better", it's still far behind most other options that are commonly in use, and still highly inconsistent and upredictable. It is rather telling in and of itself when you have to use "well, it has gotten better" as a crutch to argue that, at least, it meets a minimum standard of viability. Frameworks don't really solve this problem. Fundamentally, you're still working with a language that does some really weird things - things that are weird enough to cause near-untraceable bugs and completely unexpected vulnerabilities. You can slap a lot of abstraction onto it, and it does make it less unwieldy, but in the end you're still limited by what the language or platform has to offer you in terms of inherent consistency, predictability, and debuggability. Just take, for example, PHP's CGI-like nature. Yes, it is theoretically possible to have a long-running process, and it's theoretically possible to implement real-time services with it, but it's going to be a major headache and incredibly hard to maintain. The tools are just not really there. Any solution you come up with will, in the end, be a giant hack. Don't assume that somebody who cringes at PHP is just somebody who likes jumping on bandwagons. There are very real and rational reasons to dislike PHP, even (especially!) as an experienced PHP developer.

airtonix 12y ago
hey, remember if you turn your nose up at shitty languages and platforms, you're somehow revealing something bad about yourself. Not like the exemplary attitude of "awesome lets cut our wrists all day and open windows explorer to deploy"
yc1010 12y ago
PHP doesn't do EVERYTHING but it is good for surprisingly a lot of cases What happens when you have existing code in Java or python that does something you do not wish to reinvent the wheel with is you simply interface/bridge with from you PHP code. Right now I have 5 servers running python batch jobs processing some data (for a few months now) which is called by php with results being added to datastore for later access with php In the past I worked on an asset tracking system where we collected data from RFID readers, whole system was done in PHP with some glue Java and C code for more "to the bone" edge cases Everything I have done in PHP i could have done in C which I first learned and still use alot of, doesn't mean I want to spend my life wasting it on 90% of cases where a quick php script does the job within reasonable time I never claimed PHP is "awesome" or whatever you think I did, but it is a very capable language at getting things done fast, especially if you know what you are doing Yes there are armies of noobs giving PHP a bad name, but instead of turning your nose at them one is better helping them and showing them how to do things better

InclinedPlane 12y ago

I've done tons of PHP coding on various projects, some of which I'm quite proud of. That said, I will probably never stop cringing at the use of PHP for any project. It's a terrible tool in a huge number of ways, some of them fundamental. Yes, it's a functional tool, but mostly it's a competitively capable tool only because every other language/platform out there is also more or less equivalently terrible in some other way.

Hytosys 12y ago

>TBH if a "developer" cringes their nose at a very capable tool, just because it is not the latest "cool" thing, It tells me a lot about them. I doubt you could convince a developer to condense their opinion of PHP to "PHP isn't the latest cool thing, so I don't like it." As such, I posit you're being as judgmental and dismissive as your supposed adversary.

cageface 12y ago

We're stuck with one badly designed language on the frontend (Javascript), for reasons we can't really change now. But why on earth would you choose another badly designed language on the back end when you have so many better options? Stop being lazy and unprofessional and spend a month or two learning one of the many better commonly used web dev languages.