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> What makes, say, PHP or Visual Basic good for beginners is that they just work. And what makes them bad is they permit, induce or even explicitly teach bad h

by nkozyra 12y ago

> What makes, say, PHP or Visual Basic good for beginners is that they just work. And what makes them bad is they permit, induce or even explicitly teach bad habits. I agree to not discourage someone if they're doing it, but if you have a chance to steer them in a position where they'll be better programmers, you should do that. The reality is almost any language allows you to create a single file and run it and see a web page these days. That's not something unique to PHP at all.

nmjohn 12y ago
But the thing is for many people (at least for me) was the instant gratification PHP provides can be a powerful hook. With PHP you can create interesting visual things with virtually no experience, no boilerplate required. It's one of the few languages where that is (was, more options today than when I learned) really possible. PHP wasn't the first language I learned, but it absolutely was the language that got me hooked on programming by giving me the power to create things, visual things, interactive things, and more importantly, let me do so without following a step by step tutorial (I had basic html knowledge prior). > And what makes them bad is they permit, induce or even explicitly teach bad habits. Very true, I had some bad habits from php that took me a while to kick, but for me it was a small price to pay. > The reality is almost any language allows you to create a single file and run it and see a web page these days. That's not something unique to PHP at all. These days that may be the case, but many commenters here are referencing when they were learning to program, and a decade ago it was something incredibly unique to PHP.
jordanlev 12y ago
> The reality is almost any language allows you to create a single file and run it and see a web page these days. That's not something unique to PHP at all. This is not what the parent means. In PHP you get a crappy shared hosting account, and copy a file up to the server via FTP and it works. This is not possible with Python, Ruby, etc... you need to do more server setup in most cases. Sure this is due to historical reasons and maybe not specific to "PHP the language", but that is the situation that most beginners face. It's a very simple mental model as well. Services like Heroku kinda/sorta make it simpler for Ruby/Rails/etc., but understanding how those work and getting the command line tools set up is mentally more complex to a beginner.
- nkozyra 12y ago
  > This is not what the parent means. Well let's be fair, it's what the parent says. Even so, that's a largely outdated piece of "common knowledge" in 2014. Five years ago? Sure. Today? Not as much.
  - jordanlev 12y ago
    Genuinely curious... can you explain to me how to get a single-file ruby or python app up and running on a normal shared host (basically anything that uses "CPanel" or "Plesk")? With PHP: 1. log in to server via FTP or CPanel "File Manager" 2. find the publicly-accessible document root (htdocs, public_html, etc) 3. upload an "index.php" file to that directory with "<?php echo 'hello world';" in it 4. visit http://yoursite.com/ http://yoursite.com/ How would I achieve this most-basic web page on a common shared host in ruby or python?
    - nkozyra 12y ago
      It's been a very long while since I've been in either of these, but I recall Plesk having a shell. With that the case, the Python/Ruby file could be dumped somewhere (ideally the vhost root) and then just run through the command line in a long-lived process or daemon. Port 80 is obviously taken by Apache, but other than that ...
    - briatparallels 12y ago
      Hi Jordan, I'd recommend the following. The Plesk hoster or VPS owner can prepare the environment by himself. See: http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/09/plesk-and-ruby-on-rails/ http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/09/plesk-and-ruby-on-rails/ http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/10/plesk-and-django/ http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/10/plesk-and-django/ (full disclosure, I work for Parallels & had our dev team take a look at this question.)
Aeolun 12y ago
It is not that it is impossible to do it in another language. It is just that it is relatively simple in PHP. Single file does not necessarily mean simple. Bad habits can be induced by a language, but if you are still at the point where you're learning the concept of variables, you're way before the point where you'll begin to pick up bad habits.
FLUX-YOU 12y ago
>And what makes them bad is they permit, induce or even explicitly teach bad habits. Do we have a set of good habits defined? That seems no different a question than "What's the best programming language?" and backed by just as much opinion and authority as "Language X sucks! Use language Y!"

by nkozyra 12y ago

nmjohn 12y ago

But the thing is for many people (at least for me) was the instant gratification PHP provides can be a powerful hook. With PHP you can create interesting visual things with virtually no experience, no boilerplate required. It's one of the few languages where that is (was, more options today than when I learned) really possible. PHP wasn't the first language I learned, but it absolutely was the language that got me hooked on programming by giving me the power to create things, visual things, interactive things, and more importantly, let me do so without following a step by step tutorial (I had basic html knowledge prior). > And what makes them bad is they permit, induce or even explicitly teach bad habits. Very true, I had some bad habits from php that took me a while to kick, but for me it was a small price to pay. > The reality is almost any language allows you to create a single file and run it and see a web page these days. That's not something unique to PHP at all. These days that may be the case, but many commenters here are referencing when they were learning to program, and a decade ago it was something incredibly unique to PHP.

jordanlev 12y ago

> The reality is almost any language allows you to create a single file and run it and see a web page these days. That's not something unique to PHP at all. This is not what the parent means. In PHP you get a crappy shared hosting account, and copy a file up to the server via FTP and it works. This is not possible with Python, Ruby, etc... you need to do more server setup in most cases. Sure this is due to historical reasons and maybe not specific to "PHP the language", but that is the situation that most beginners face. It's a very simple mental model as well. Services like Heroku kinda/sorta make it simpler for Ruby/Rails/etc., but understanding how those work and getting the command line tools set up is mentally more complex to a beginner.

nkozyra 12y ago
> This is not what the parent means. Well let's be fair, it's what the parent says. Even so, that's a largely outdated piece of "common knowledge" in 2014. Five years ago? Sure. Today? Not as much.
- jordanlev 12y ago
  Genuinely curious... can you explain to me how to get a single-file ruby or python app up and running on a normal shared host (basically anything that uses "CPanel" or "Plesk")? With PHP: 1. log in to server via FTP or CPanel "File Manager" 2. find the publicly-accessible document root (htdocs, public_html, etc) 3. upload an "index.php" file to that directory with "<?php echo 'hello world';" in it 4. visit http://yoursite.com/ http://yoursite.com/ How would I achieve this most-basic web page on a common shared host in ruby or python?
  - nkozyra 12y ago
    It's been a very long while since I've been in either of these, but I recall Plesk having a shell. With that the case, the Python/Ruby file could be dumped somewhere (ideally the vhost root) and then just run through the command line in a long-lived process or daemon. Port 80 is obviously taken by Apache, but other than that ...
  - briatparallels 12y ago
    Hi Jordan, I'd recommend the following. The Plesk hoster or VPS owner can prepare the environment by himself. See: http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/09/plesk-and-ruby-on-rails/ http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/09/plesk-and-ruby-on-rails/ http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/10/plesk-and-django/ http://devblog.plesk.com/2014/10/plesk-and-django/ (full disclosure, I work for Parallels & had our dev team take a look at this question.)

Aeolun 12y ago

It is not that it is impossible to do it in another language. It is just that it is relatively simple in PHP. Single file does not necessarily mean simple. Bad habits can be induced by a language, but if you are still at the point where you're learning the concept of variables, you're way before the point where you'll begin to pick up bad habits.

FLUX-YOU 12y ago

>And what makes them bad is they permit, induce or even explicitly teach bad habits. Do we have a set of good habits defined? That seems no different a question than "What's the best programming language?" and backed by just as much opinion and authority as "Language X sucks! Use language Y!"