3 ms·

I'd say writing off an entire language with a vague anecdote is worth at least a little scrutiny or clarification.

• drivingmenuts 12y ago
  People have been doing that with PHP for years. Yes, it's true that there's a ton of really bad code out there. But that's a measure of it's popularity. There's also a ton of bad C and Java out there. And yet, no one dismisses those languages because of that.
  • wwweston 12y ago
    As far as I can tell, anecdotes, social proof, and familiarity play far more a role in the reputations of almost every language/tool than most engineers seem prepared to admit. (But don't worry, dear reader -- you're probably the exception!) PHP gets singled out for a bit of extra abuse (some perhaps justifiably, some not so much), but it's far from the only language whose popular conception is not so much based on thoughtful evaluation.