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Why do we need to duplicate the effort that people (some very smart people, btw!) have put into Hack (http://hacklang.org/ http://hacklang.org/), a sane strictl

by nnq 12y ago

Why do we need to duplicate the effort that people (some very smart people, btw!) have put into Hack (http://hacklang.org/ http://hacklang.org/), a sane strictly typed PHP successor with many other good stuff added?! (imho, not only good, but awesome stuff, like XHP https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/xhp-a-new-way-to-write-php/294003943919 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/xhp-a-ne... and async/await http://docs.hhvm.com/manual/en/hack.async.php http://docs.hhvm.com/manual/en/hack.async.php) And as a bonus, both HHVM.PHP and Hack and are well optimized to run at Facebook's scale... seriously, let's just leave Zend.PHP rot away in the trashcan of history and move the f on!

marrs 12y ago
Well an obvious reason is all the PHP site that have already been written, are crucial components in many businesses, and cannot be upgraded to Hack. Those sites' authors may still want access to all that good stuff. In fact, this kind of feature may make it easier to convert those applications to Hack in the future.
- nnq 12y ago
  You can freely mix Hack code and PHP code on the HHVM, calling functions and classes defined in any PHP file inside you Hack app. Then you can slowly evolve the codebase to contain more and more Hack and less and less PHP. That's the huge point that nobody seems to see. But then again, considering how many other huge points PHP developers seem to miss in general, maybe it's better to just let Node.js eat the world :)
  - marrs 12y ago
    In that case I take it all back! Sorry, I hadn't realised HHVM was so far along.
ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
I think it is important for what Facebook has done to fork and bleed all over the edge of optimization. What needs to happen is that the best features to come out of that float up to the root language and are adopted as part of the standard. PHP the language will always rely on PHP the brand being as ubiquitous as it is. The more that can be done to improve the language, the stronger the brand and the longer it will endure.

by nnq 12y ago

marrs 12y ago

Well an obvious reason is all the PHP site that have already been written, are crucial components in many businesses, and cannot be upgraded to Hack. Those sites' authors may still want access to all that good stuff. In fact, this kind of feature may make it easier to convert those applications to Hack in the future.

nnq 12y ago
You can freely mix Hack code and PHP code on the HHVM, calling functions and classes defined in any PHP file inside you Hack app. Then you can slowly evolve the codebase to contain more and more Hack and less and less PHP. That's the huge point that nobody seems to see. But then again, considering how many other huge points PHP developers seem to miss in general, maybe it's better to just let Node.js eat the world :)
- marrs 12y ago
  In that case I take it all back! Sorry, I hadn't realised HHVM was so far along.

ChikkaChiChi 12y ago

I think it is important for what Facebook has done to fork and bleed all over the edge of optimization. What needs to happen is that the best features to come out of that float up to the root language and are adopted as part of the standard. PHP the language will always rely on PHP the brand being as ubiquitous as it is. The more that can be done to improve the language, the stronger the brand and the longer it will endure.