Arguments against PHP are as futile as arguments in support of PHP. It's a programming language. The only thing that matters is the person using it. I'm sure Ruby, Node and Go are super duper awesome in a lot of academic ways, but unless we're talking about awesome things that have been made with them, it's just blah blah blah boring opinions no one should care about.
But Y?
function Y($F) {
$func = function ($f) { return $f($f); };
return $func(function ($f) use($F) {
return $F(function ($x) use($f) {
$ff = $f($f);
return $ff($x);
});
});
}Anyway, that's a joke implementation of the Y combinator[1] in PHP.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_combinator#Y_combin...
Well, sure, I guess if you're really strange, you can be as efficient with Brainfuck as you can be with Python.
Disclaimer: never touch the stuff myself.
I find Hacker News loves PHP in comparison to most places developers hang out. Mostly because of the prevalence of the kind of anti-intellectualism on display in your comment.
Some of us have used PHP for years AND many other languages and have a basis for comparison.
No! Please see "Beating the Averages" [http://paulgraham.com/avg.html] (skip to "The Blub paradox" for tldr)
It it true that a lot of discussion here is pointless evangelization and bashing, but the argument "programming language does not matter, only the programmer" is even worse. If that was true, there would be no difference between a C# programmer and a Visual Basic programmer. Languages would stay the same with no initiative to change. Yet they do change and evolve. Programming languages vary in power, even though they are Turing-complete.
PHP apologists make this claim every time PHP is mentioned here. And yet the threads are always full of these apologists, claiming PHP is awesome because facebook uses it, or because every cheap shitty webhost has it installed. Never making any actual argument that PHP is good, or rebuttal to the numerous arguments that PHP is bad. I'm sorry, but for a site that is supposed to have an intelligent, technically literate userbase, HN has far too many head in the sand PHP supporters, not too many PHP haters.
That is the argument. PHP is good b/c it allows a lot of people to be productive. C is probably a better written language then Ruby, but it doesn't matter b/c if you're doing web development you're not going to be as productive in C as you will be in Ruby.
That isn't an argument, because every other scripting language also allows a lot of people to be productive. If A is equal to B in one respect, and far worse in dozens of other respects, pointing out the one way it is equal doesn't make an argument that A is good.
I didn't state it was better then any other language. I simply made a case that it is a good language.
No it isn't. I never compared it to any other language commonly used for web development. I never even hinted at that being my argument.
I really have the same question for you. You keep assuming I was implying something I wasn't in my original statement. I do not know why you keep doing this. Clearly we have two different opinions on two things:
1. PHP
2. What I said.
I think we should just agree to disagree on both, because we are not getting anywhere.
EDIT: I just want to add that IMO - you can call something 'good' without comparing it to something else. It would only be a comparison if I called it 'better'.
Python/Ruby/whatever language higher up the power curve allows fewer people to be more productive.
Is it really that hard to understand that different levels of expertise suit different tools?
The big difference is you don't have people in professional carpentry forums arguing that hammers are better or just as good as nailguns and if you disagree then you are an anti-hammer elitist. But our professional is a young one in more than one way.
And what about cross dowels! Don't get me started!