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Comment by crindy | Hacker News Reader

Javascript is the only language that runs in the browser. There are tons of great alternatives to PHP to run on a server.

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This comment implies like there aren't any other great alternatives for jquery in the browser.

What about dojotoolkit or YUI library? I don't see how javascript is here to blame.

I think the point he's making is that you don't need to find a jQuery-like library for PHP because you can just use another language.

I personally say nuts to that. With all of the latest projects, PHP development is actually getting to be pretty non-shitty.

"Non-shitty" is a pretty low bar though. When you have a wide variety of choices, you may as well hold out for "good" or "great", even if it means learning a new language, some new technologies or even a new mindset. Having to learn something or spend some time setting things up is a trivial cost for any non-trivial project: increasing your productivity when programming or maintaining code is a very good return on investment.

Unconstructive comment. Which alternatives, and why? I don't think there's even one which is a clear cut alternative (where the downsides are minor, when compared with the upsides). On speed alone, PHP gets a huge head start when comparing alternatives.

Note that I'm not saying PHP is great. It's a cesspool of language defects. However, it's success has merit.

Ok, please use any decent php web framework and compare the speed to lets say python/ruby - not to mention something like pypy.

"Hello World" is not world-like performance benchmark.

Why would you compare a PHP framework to either Python or Ruby?

because people do not develop web-apps with bare python/ruby

Sorry, I don't think what you wrote makes any sense.

He's comparing "any decent php web framework" to Python or Ruby, because neither of those languages are used without frameworks to develop web-apps?

No, because php is rarely used to develop applications without proper level of abstraction - so it makes sense to compare apples to apples.

Not always. I am obliged to use PHP at the moment.

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