And by things I don't mean just web development.
The current limitations I see in PHP is that there is not an official multi-core coroutines solution.
God I wish that was true...
It's not that the language is necessarrily bad. It's the sludge of legacy code I've had to deal with and teams treating it as the hammer for every problem that they think they must treat as a nail.
Efficency be damned.
use App\Events\ArtistInformationFetched;
use App\Services\MediaMetadataService;
use Throwable;
class DownloadArtistImage
{
private MediaMetadataService $mediaMetadataService;
public function __construct(MediaMetadataService $mediaMetadataService)
{
$this->mediaMetadataService = $mediaMetadataService;
}
public function handle(ArtistInformationFetched $event): void
{
$info = $event->getInformation();
$artist = $event->getArtist();
$image = array_get($info, 'image');
if (!$artist->has_image && $image && ini_get('allow_url_fopen')) {
try {
$this->mediaMetadataService->downloadArtistImage($artist, $image);
} catch (Throwable $e) {
}
}
}
}
https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/container#introduction
Or, if you wanted something perhaps at least use one of their featured partners for real code? https://github.com/tighten/jigsaw/blob/main/src/Jigsaw.php
I also would argue that the majority of code I see in other languages is equally or worse than the example you gave.
You can write terribly in any language, Laravel included.
The nails are http requests and PHP is a damn good hammer.
Hello World
You would need something like
import { stdout } from 'process';
stdout.write("Hello World"); console.log("Hello World")I do wonder if there really was value in salvaging PHP when we have a wealth of other languages and frameworks that do a perfectly fine job without any of the legacy mistakes sitting around.
Among that choice set, PHP is definitely the best contender.
can rails compete with the performance of octane using swoole with 8k reqs per sec?
rails is the first framework I ever learned in 2012 but I kept jumping back and forth until laravel basically started lapping rails in terms of baked in goodies.
I have a HTML page. How do I add a hit counter to it with Ruby?
I can do it right now in PHP with zero dependencies and it'll fit in this comment:
<html><body>
<p>You are visitor number:
<?php
$count = file_get_contents('hit_count.txt');
$count = $count + 1;
file_put_contents('hit_count.txt', $count);
echo $count;
?>
</p>
</body></html>
When you want to do something, you can just copy and paste a handful of lines of PHP into a file and rename it from .html to .php and it'll basically work anywhere. You don't need to worry about frameworks or anything. Routing is handled by the web server. Hosting is handled by someone else. Deploying is just FTP'ing a .php file off to a server somewhere and then requesting it.
But when you are ready to get into "real" programming, that's all there too. PHP has a true learning _curve_. Every bit of complexity is only a small step from the previous. Getting started does not require a ton of background or knowledge. You can start out copying and pasting some code into the middle of some HTML and a year later end up working within once of the nicer, more comprehensive frameworks managing your dependencies with a relatively decent package manager... and still hosting it all on your $3/mo shared hosting.
If every professional developer stopped using PHP tomorrow, we'd still end up back exactly where we are as a bunch of people found PHP as the most accessible and direct solution to the problem they have.
While with rails, to do basically anything, you already have a full db ready and incrementing a counter using the ORM is even easier than opening a text file. So people avoid PHP because it most likely involves dealing with absolute crap code written with no understanding.
How it makes it harder? Or you compare PHP a language with Rails a framework? Maybe shut up if you have no idea or show us a pure Ruby code that does the same thing. Or install the most popular PHP framework, really learn that and then tell us that PHP made things harder. I don't know Ruby or rails so I can't shit on that like an idiot.
<? include '../menu.php' ?>
The tales of legacy mistakes holding back php are things with no basis in reality. What legacy mistake holds php back? Method names/parameter ordering?
When I started with php in 2001 those elite programmers at meetups were looking down at php because Java was cool. In 2003 those elite programmers thought php should die because asp took over. PHP kept going along quietly taking over the web until the facebook movie came out making PHP cool for a moment. Those elite programmers decided PHP was too mainstream and the why PHP sucked movement started. The elite guys moved to Ruby On Rails then node/MongoDB, angularjs, React, Nextjs leaving each ecosystem for the next hoping that one day they will strike gold.
I'm not even really sure why python is so popular for DevOps cause I do everything in php and it's unit tested and works well with reproducible results.
Nobody can tell me why PHP is “bad” or what Python does that PHP can’t. Inconsistent params are the only argument I’ve heard. Which my IDE solves. What about JavaScript splice vs slice. I look it up every time.
Personally, I can't stand writing PHP, because, sure, I can write secure, testable, safe code in any language, including PHP, but, how do I say this, PHP is the only language that feels actively hostile to my attempts to do so. The house style at my current company could be boiled down to "Check 3 times that there are no PHP footguns present in this code. We have been burned before." The developer experience and tooling is far behind comparable languages. I feel like I have to put my sysadmin hat on to fix anything that goes wrong with my environment.
When I write Javascript or Python, I have complaints and issues, but I enjoy writing code. I think PHP, for many programmers, including myself, is just a hostile and unenjoyable experience. If you enjoy writing PHP, I have nothing against you and am certain you will remain employable, there's a lot of PHP out there.
> Honest question: what are people using if not PHP? Node? Python? The 80% of us who aren’t FAANG and are writing CRUD apps.
Python, Node, Java, .NET, Ruby. MVC CRUD apps are pretty similar in all of these (also in PHP). All of those languages (including PHP) power many many many software companies (including FAANG, who use a lot of Java and C++, and Facebook famously was built on PHP).
Surely JS has at least an equal amount of foot-guns to PHP. I mean, at least PHP (to my knowledge) never had a meta-language written around it that compiles to PHP to make it safer.
Static typing, concurrency, blazing fast, single binary.
They have trouble grokking that there is a method of dev in which the server is not the language parser, so all other languages feel like a wrong step.
Here on HN someone just asked why anyone would write in anything except JS [1].
Now, Node has it's advantages, and so does PHP. My personal preference is PHP. But in mindset, Node is far ahead of anyhere that Rails or Django ever got in their respective waves.
This is important
* memory model (shared, per request, etc)
* request model (by the app or by the web server)
* compilation/build step
* deployment
* hosting
* tooling (IDEs, linters, testing, package manager, etc)
* how to scale
* available programmers
* community
* $ in variable names
* arrows (->) for accessing object members
* argument order in standard library
* not elegant enoughI have once heard an ancient prophecy (I think it's Greek) that says "Debating around PHP online summons the ghost of the dark behind your back" or something like that (I don't speak Greek, sorry).
In the Client/Server world now days, the most of the time you only need one or two languages, one running on the Client side (JavaScript for example) and one running on the server (**, Go, Java, JavaScript etc).
In that setting, JavaScript comes with the hard advantage of both-end compatibility, that gives you something like Server-side Rendering, which no other backend-only language could do, at least not "natively". If you have a foundation this good, people will build the library themselves when the language/runtime don't have it built-in. (the same is true when it comes to Swift/Dart/Kotlin. I bet there is someone/company out there writing both their app and their backend in Swift/Kotlin)
For "backend-only" languages, it's largely down to personal/team preference. Some needs performance, some wants "write-friendly" (contains many factors). But the problem is, the market now days is saturated with better options that also do more things (often in a better way). When you bring all the options on the table, then suddenly that-language-the-name-we-shall-not-say started to look way less attractive.
It's just that, comparison/competition kills things, no elite required.
Isn't it the definition of a "backend-only language" that it renders server-side?
The problem with swapping out php on the backend for node is now you have to maintain a node server, manage long running processes. If you make a change to a node file you have to restart the server. Where php is running under apache or nginx and files can be dropped in without taking down the site.
That's why everyone is going serverless.. who wants to manage a node server.
That's a lousy dig at Python. Stuff you solve with a free text editor and 15 seconds worth of configuration aren't real problems.
There was no chance of it being killed off rapidly as the author was perhaps implying. It might have slowly rotted away, had the maintainers not stepped up with v7 and hit a home run.
caching, jobs, docker via sail, authentication and authorization, one command to have a full multi team/tenant SaaS app template via jet stream.
even rails doesn't have this, as you need to choose your own implementation for auth and access control, something like sidekick for job queue etc....
plus the ecosystem. I've tried so hard to like other frameworks and some I really do (like remix.run) but the lack of real momentum and community hurts most anything else and just doing everything as serverless micro services isn't always preferred or using micro frameworks.
I'm excited for the new features and with octane you can get more reqs per second than Phoenix framework which should make it easier to scale apps with less resources.
1. The combination associative array/array data type is weird and I feel like the performance is not predictable unless you devote time to learning specifically about it
2. You're still stuck with all the weird legacy stuff, even if you don't use it, because someone else might bring it in
3. The OO stuff is basically like an old version of Java and a bit tedious to write. An IDE is definitely required
4. Many PHP developers formed their ideas about coding in the bad old days and will resist efforts to make code more testable or whatever because it's "too complicated."
The OO 'stuff' in PHP is far better. Notably, Traits, Statics and Testing.
Java (and JUnit) do not work well with static methods/classes, when it's unironically the most effective way to limit state. In PHP you can create a static class, that has static utility methods. Now you can ensure you have no side effects - unless accessing static properties somewhere, ofc. Then PHPUnit has no trouble helping you test these. It's a huge improvement over the acrobatics of booting up Spring to manage a singleton (which isn't the same thing as a static class) whenever you want access to those real static methods.
I didn't imply that you couldn't make a static class in Java. There are lots of ways to make something like a top level static class (nested static, Spring singletons, et al), which works against the explicitly stated purpose of limiting state involvement.
@Test
public void testSomeMethod_FromStatic() {
StaticWrapper1 staticWrapper = new StaticWrapper1();
int mockInput = 1;
RegularClass rc = new RegularClass();
int expected = 2;
int ret = staticWrapper.someStaticClass.someMethod(rc, mockInput);
verify(staticWrapper.someStaticClass, times(1)).someMethod(rc, mockInput);
assertEquals(expected, ret);
}
public class StaticWrapper1 {
static class StaticClass {
public int someMethod(RegularClass foo, int val){
return foo.someAddMethod(val);
/* it's not practical to chain, eg
staticWrapper2.someAddMethod(foo, val);
because you end up with circular dependencies or passing large numbers of deps around, which you can't verify in tests anyway */
}
}
}
Making syntactical boilerplate "just because", which also requires instantiation breaking DI (ostensibly, all you have to do is boot up Spring IoC container and it's there are runtime), is inferior to PHP.
Maybe one day Spring will be baked into Java, but that's a one-ton runtime workaround for a small mistake in the core philosophy, ie you can put a non-static function around a static function and treat it as the static, so it's a JVM problem. Pushing explicit instancing to the code is bad design from a makeshift solution to get Java working on older platforms, quickly. Now java does prechecking of memory anyway, so the way you have to do static implementation is an extraneous legacy limitation.
PHP is better with how it deals with statics today, which bleeds into other areas like testing.
https://github.com/epiecs/phpmiko for connecting to devices and https://github.com/epiecs/mikodo for inventories and concurrency
The multi core coroutines comment is true but there are ways (to hack) around that.
The way I solved concurrency is just by forking and using sockets: https://github.com/epiecs/mikodo/blob/6bdcebe9fa7f44ffdedd82...
I use it at work atm does what it's supposed to. I also use Python as well but I wanted to know if it could be done in php :D
I’ve never learned to like the language, but have gotten pretty proficient with it. I don’t claim to be a PHP maven, though. I know that my style is fairly “primitive.”
I tend to use it for my backend work. It’s quite performant, has huge infrastructure support, and it’s entirely possible to write safe, high-quality, low-level systems in PHP. I’m a good engineer, and do a decent job; regardless of the tool I use.
C++ is the same way. People have been hating on that language for even longer than they have, PHP. C++ is still used for many major infrastructure projects, though; because it’s the best language for that kind of thing.
If you give a kid a chainsaw with the guard removed (as most arborists do), don’t be surprised, when the screaming starts.
No. Just no. PHP will not be solid and elegant by evolution. It might have become an excellent tool for the area it's supposed to be used in, but the only way it could ever become elegant is if it had its python2=>python3 sort of moment. They would need to break it to fix it.
I don't think they'll do that, since I think they understand that it doesn't matter at all that the language sucks.
The alternative would have to be TCL levels of bad to make me choose PHP.
my favorite part of modern PHP is how nice writing libraries is. so it might not be what you're looking for, but I remember being pretty impressed with the code quality of the Amp PHP library recently. the v3 branch is 8.x only and (I believe) is targeting the Fibers feature just introduced in 8.1
https://github.com/amphp/amp/tree/v3
one of the best things to come with PHP are the community standardizations around things like interfaces for HTTP requests, logging, DI containers, and even code style standards. it makes for a very consistent experience when developing (at least when you're in the "new world"), since most newer libraries are all written in a similar style using common interfaces
I ended up in a position where I've become responsible for a very high volume WooCommerce/Wordpress store and the things that I've seen in _brand new code_ is mind boggling. Their new, branded, in-house paypal plugin/integration is currently at 1.5/5 rating on the wordpress plugin marketplace [0]. It just doesn't work for various reasons for various people. It's 2021, how do you screw up a payment gateway for wordpress when you _are_ wordpress? But wait, there's more. They already had PayPal integration, built into the core and already included in all WooCommerce installs. So what to do? Force disable the already existing, working-properly, integration and recommend their new plugin to be used. [1] This is hostile.
If your woocommerce webhook delivery fails 3 times in a row, woocommerce will just turn off that webhook/stop delivering them. Silently. No option for any sort of alert to be sent/logged, no way to store/replay the missed webhooks. Just off. This is irresponsible.
Our installation happens to have a lot of details that go into each line item on an order - which, in turn, turns into many rows of meta data. Woocommerce doesn't rely on dedicated tables for orders or related metadata, it's all stuffed into 'posts' and 'post_meta'. It doesn't scale well, terrible really. It's a large enough problem that LiquidWeb starting working on a fix for high volume sites that end up getting crushed with database/performance issues related to these tables/the way the order data is stored. [2][3] This was supposed to merged into the WooCommerce core but that seems to have stalled/fizzled.
I was able to reduce response time on an API request to get_order() from 3-5s to 0.25s by adding an index to the meta table mentioned above. (The query wasn't using any index) This likely isn't the case for the vast majority of installations, or it doesn't matter because the databases are small enough. But things like this indicate to me that the test suite/benchmarking is seriously flawed - or they're not doing things like testing and benchmarking against real-world databases.
Taking a look at various release notes the types of bugs seem to indicate to me there's not a lot of automated testing going on or that things are so convoluted/messy that it's become too complex.
All in all, for the people behind the PHP workhorse (the hero we deserve...) it's all pretty scary. The code quality, quality control and just about everything leaves a poor taste in my mouth. I'm not a big "Team PHP" guy - I like the idea of using the right tool for the job and the scary thing is that Wordpress is the right tool for the job for a lot of people. (WooCommerce, these days, is basically never the right tool)
This is a terrible look for PHP.
Laravel/Symfony on the other hand... take my money. It's a pleasure. LiveWire, tailwind, oh my.
There's still a place for Wordpress - it's not going anywhere... but it's got a long way to go before I'd say it's anywhere near ok. Let alone approaching latest standards (even despite it's supporting older versions of the language). Can we get first-party/first-option composer support? Why, again, is it another company driving Wordpress forward? [4]
[0] https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/woocommerce-paypal-paym...
[1] https://developer.woocommerce.com/2021/07/12/developer-advis...
[2] https://github.com/liquidweb/woocommerce-custom-orders-table
While I agree this is an antipattern it appeared to be the recommended way when I first got into WP plugin development. IIRC because one cannot guarantee hosting will backup all tables of the DB, and some DBs mix other non-WP stuff.
If you can do as little as possible in PHP and rely on the low level functions to stitch together what you need, deserialize and render data in the front end, use front-end templating, then PHP is insanely fast, practical language.
The issues with PHP are usually when people build out giant frameworks in PHP, rather than using PHP as a higher level glue language for the built-in fast C functions.
Laravel and Symfony are both extremely good, and the only reason people don't use them tends to be out of misplaced arrogance. Unsurprisingly, they end up building their own awful framework, and at some point the project either dies or someone says "Erm, we should put this in Laravel".
There are some people who've built great projects without these frameworks, and there are many projects in these frameworks that are terrible. But in terms of probabilities, you've got a much better chance of a project being well-built if it's in Symfony or Laravel.
There just is so much legacy in the PHP world that separating the wheat from the chaff in itself becomes tedious. And don't understand me wrong: legacy in itself is not a problem. It's the combination of PHP being easy to pick up, lots of outsourcing, people writing procedural code without any notion of code readability, lack of tests, use of global state, etc that usually just make me cry and move on. For me the percentage of worthwhile PHP projects to chase is too low in comparison with many other technologies.
Even though PHP was what got me into programming in the first place, I nowadays thus chose to pick other battles. But every once in a while I still nostalgiously float back in time to my childhood days, enjoying every line of the almighty 4MB imagemagick monstrosity scripts I conspired. And then I'm happy that you nor I have to solve these enigma puzzles.