A small child doesn't think a crayon is badly designed until he has used a pencil or a pen. Without a frame of reference, a PHP developer has little reason to swear at the code.
C Perl JavaScript PHP
I also occasionally code in Python and assembly for fun.
When it comes to web projects PHP is my goto language because it works in all web environments without a bunch of bullshit surrounding installation, versioning or deployment. It's 2011 people, are you telling me developers are still trying to establish some sense of shiny self importance based on language choice? Sad.
Most of the developers are bad. Assuming a normal distribution, pretty much half of them are below the average and average is not usually something to brag about.
That said, languages that stand a higher chance of generating employment should attract those that don't want to learn new programming languages (something good programmers tend to do) and want to make their bets on sure technologies. I expect programmers interested in Lisp, Haskel, Erlang, Python, Ruby, Lua, Scala, Forth, Smalltalk to be, on average, better than those who choose Java, C#, PHP or Visual Basic. Of course, not all of those who choose these languages are bad programmers (and the opposite is also true), but I bet you will find more mediocre programmers on the second-group.
(burn, karma, burn)
"languages that stand a higher chance of generating employment should attract those that don't want to learn a new programming language" I think you're confusing PHP and Visual Basic/.NET here. Based on hit counts of job posts there are way more job opportunities for MS developers than PHP developers and based on median salary data coding .NET is worth about 20k a year more, so if they're rational actors the "just in it for a paycheck" crowd should be migrating to Windows development.
Your language salad comparisons are likewise faith-based. How about we trade anecdotes instead? I've met a total of six Ruby developers during my professional career. To a man they were immature, arrogant and totally in love with the hype surrounding their language of choice. Four of the six could be fingered for running multi-million dollar projects into the ground courtesy of a year and a half long series of hipster love-in's masquerading as a SCRUM meetings. Meanwhile during the same time period myself and one other developer launched 65 sites on four platforms with a combined total of around 1 million in annual ad revenue generated for the company. You just keep singing your song, man. I'll keep shipping shit.
Edited to add: just keep on downvoting, truth hurts.
Still, if the highly abstract programmer competency follows a normal distribution (and I admit a leap of faith there), you'll agree with me that half of the programmers out there will end up below the average. You'll also agree with me that just above the average doesn't make a good programmer, so, most of the programmers around us will be bad ones.
I don't believe you were downvoted for saying painful truths (which I don't think you did), but more on the form of your statement. I believe most downvoters didn't pass the first sentence. I believe this is a good thing - poor form is bad for discussion. We shouldn't get emotional.
It's hard to remember this is HN when walking into threads like these. As I mentioned elsewhere, if PHP is mentioned, HN maturity takes a nose dive as people make what amounts to dick and fart jokes. It's embarrassing.
> I don't believe you were downvoted for saying painful truths (which I don't think you did), but more on the form of your statement. I believe most downvoters didn't pass the first sentence. I believe this is a good thing - poor form is bad for discussion. We shouldn't get emotional.
It's not because of his tone. It's because he's defending PHP. Look at other posts in this thread. Look at the bitches thread. Littered with immaturity and a far worse tone than the parent here. Sure, the tone didn't help here, but if his tone had been the same, but defending Ruby, or Lisp, or some other fashionable language, he wouldn't have been. Even your post smells like this.
One more thing...
> I expect programmers interested in Lisp, Haskel, Erlang, Python, Ruby, Lua, Scala, Forth, Smalltalk to be, on average, better than those who choose Java, C#, PHP or Visual Basic.
Ruby is the language people go to for work now. Why? Because it's the in language, especially in the context of HN. And its' not just Ruby, but RoR specifically.
There are more jobs about Java and C# and PHP than on RoR. RoR jobs may be more frequent on sexy startups (the type that appears here).
I'm not suggesting RoR has a lot of jobs compared to the Java or C#, but rather, it's not exactly devoid of job offers either. Especially within the context of HN.
So, apologies for not being clear about the context.
There can also be humourous swearing, and swearing for emphasis (see DHH), neither of which convey annoyance at all.
Hypothesis A: PHP projects tend to be smaller and simpler, with fewer interactions with other code/requirements/people, and therefore fewer opportunities for annoyance.
Hypothesis B: PHP is actually a very simple and close fit to its use-case, of unambitious webapps, and so often the tool just does its job, and disappears. There's no space to swear at a tool that you don't notice.
# This new PHP library is fucking awesome!A lot of people love their tools just because they don't know better ones.
Speaking of frame of reference, people belittling PHP devs are mostly showing their own ignorance.