Will never understand why some people find that so offensive and will tell you that you mustn't use it or imply that you are ignorant or stupid for using it.
I think JS can be worse. There are things that are possible with dynamic languages that are literally impossible with static ones.
So think of PHP less as a "bad language" and more of a code smell.
Requesting `index.php?something=X` implied `$something = "X";` in the global scope at the beginning of "index.php". And since the global scope was not limited to a file, tracing a variable through files and side effects was a nightmare. Even understanding the code intent was often hard!
Before PHP7, there were many elements of the language that were meant to simplify its usage, but had awful consequences in many cases. Even more because it bent the PHP community toward a quick and dirty process. "Magic quotes", the automatic escaping was one of those abominations. For any request input (e.g. POST form data), it added backslashes before single quotes. It was meant to protect data automatically in case it was inserted into a SQL request... It granted no security gain in this context, and was a mess for any other use.
I'm currently working for a company where all our microservices were written in Node.js by juniors.
JS can absolutely be worse than PHP
You'd have to try really hard to make callback labyrinths in JS match the mess that came out of the above combined with runtime-as-template-engine. This was basically idiomatic at the time.
1. https://www.audero.it/blog/2016/12/05/monkey-patching-javasc...
The value of a form input with the name “foo.bar” will instead be available under $_POST[“foo_bar”].
Surely that depends on when the PHP in question was originally written.
Lots of new good things in php7/php8. The typecasting is way better than before, but it still allows you to be more "dynamic" if you want to.
$x = [1,null,'xxxx', collect([])];
You can also add annotations like `/* @var []int */`. External tools (psalm, phpstan) use annotations in their static analysis of the code and will raise an error if $x elements are not integers.
Of course, it's far from Haskell, but my experience with types in PHP is smoother than in Python. Though it was 2 years ago in Python, and the environnement has probably matured.
In my opinion, a worse problem with PHP is that classes properties are dynamic. `class A {}; $a=new A; $a->x=1;` is perfectly valid and will add a property to the object that does not exist in the class. There's no simple way to forbid this, even at runtime (hacking the magic `__set()` creates other pain points).
There's a current RFC that is aiming to deprecate this 'feature'.
PHP's "prescient" model demanded one OS process per request which is frankly absurd and I don't get how anyone views PHP in serious light because of this single fact alone.
"How many companies need X" is not a discussion, it's an exchange of opinions and won't ever go anywhere, so I refuse to start it.
I was merely responding to the claim that PHP had "prescient" ideas. It didn't.
- Web frontend: Javascript/TypeScript
- Web backend: Javascript/TypeScript, Python
- Performant backend (where you manage threads and queues): Go, Java, Rust
- Machine learning: Python
- Command line scripting: Python
- Command line tools (binaries, eg 'ripgrep'): Rust, Go
- Mobile: Kotlin, Swift
- Systems/bare metal: Rust (discourage C/C++)
- Desktop games: C#, C++, GLSL, Rust (in ten years)
Mix and match.
The safest three to learn that give you the most flexibility are probably Javascript/TypeScript, Python, and Rust. You can build almost anything with those three.
Sure, Rust is _fun_ but there's little demand for it right now in the market.
Recent example, while Android has adopted Rust for replacing their bluetooth stack, the newly introduced Android Games Development SDK focus on C and C++.
Or Microsoft, despite all their security speech, Azure Sphere OS and RTOS only support C on the official SDK, and the new WinUI components are all based on C++.
And naturally anyone wanting to contribute to the Rust compilers, most likely will need to brush up their C++ skills if they intend to mess with GCC or LLVM internals.
That's true, but as a beginner I feel like starting with Rust is a lot more accessible, and could help someone switch into C++ later.
So from that point of view, learning about lifetimes, modular code, and that bounds checking isn't evil are already good education stepping stones.
I've done shell scripts in PHP. Mobile development in Ruby, JS and haxe. Web development with Go. Nothing is stopping you, and if you know the language it is usually not to weird either.
C++, though, agreed.
You didn’t use “I” at all, but it seems likely there are some other rules going on here.
You notice the pattern. Mimic it. Struglle with it. Persevere.Endure. Will you reach perfection? Maybe not. No problem. Satisfaction is few layers below.
"I have used PHP for years." The first sentence establishes the subject is "I".
"Like it." etc Because this sentence doesn't have an explicit subject, it is implicitly the same one, "I".
As I recall, "wa" and "ga" were the Japanese particles which established new subjects. Say you wanted to talk about Bob's new car, you'd say something akin to "About Bob's new car, is expensive. Arrived last week. Has poor gas economy."
I had a friend in college who would always point it out (in English, where it's not very common). I still notice it often years later and I'm pretty sure it's thanks to her making me aware of it.
Thanks for the insight!
Not sure that I have any tips for you. Other than that it is often helpful to remove unnecessary words when communicating. This is something I have become sensitive to over the years. I used to write a lot more voluminously but I find it is harder to convey messages to people when they are confronted with a wall of text.