Comment by Udo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Udo | Hacker News Reader

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Could you be more specific? What's your performance problem? Where do you think the documentation is bad? In my experience these are two areas where PHP is doing pretty well.

I share your reservations about legacy API (the naming scheme and parameter order of many standard PHP functions should have been cleaned up years ago) and I think adding yet another slew of OO sugar coating isn't going to encourage developers to write better PHP apps, quite the contrary.

> Its like their upset that people have moved on, but instead of providing a better core for people to build products on they keep adding chrome to the fringes of the language hoping to get more people sucked into developing for it only to realize that once they do anything of significant size in PHP they will need to do a full rewrite into a language that can actually scale or turn to a PHP to C++ lexer to actually get a product that doesn't also server as a Data center toaster oven.

Wow. This big run-on sentence about not being able to do "anything significant in PHP" is just not true, and that's me parsing it generously. Big projects can and do run on PHP. It's a valid choice. If you're using PHP for genome sequencing analysis, you're not using the right tool to begin with - but the same applies to pretty much any other web language as well.

When I say documentation I mean the internals of PHP. Here is their documentation page

http://www.php.net/manual/en/internals2.apiref.php

I must confess my knowledge about PHP internals and the perspectives of being a core runtime developer is pretty much non-existent. All I have to go by are the API and language features exposed to any web app developer - and that paints a different picture. Are you, by chance, a core contributor?

I have contributed patches to the PHP core, but I am not a core developer.

What would be valid choices for using PHP today if not for dealing with legacy code bases? It's the only thing you know? You don't have money to pay programmers for other languages? (PHP devs are commonly the cheapest)

There is not really a lot of substance in those assertions. There might be more legacy PHP codebases than, say, Ruby ones, but that's going to change as Ruby ages. The allegation that PHP is being used by people who don't know anything else is just subjective and wrong, and ultimately nothing but flamebait. You can get cheap PHP devs because PHP is so ubiquitous. You can also get really good ones. Same goes for RoR and Python/Django by the way as they become mainstream. As you move away from the cutting edge as successful projects do, there is always an influx of less-skilled developers trying to hop onto the wagon. That doesn't say anything about the things good developers can do with the right tools.

In the end, there is just nothing constructive here. PHP haters, fashionable as they may be, will agree with you. PHP users will roll their eyes and move on. And very little factual arguments have been exchanged beyond useless posturing.

> The allegation that PHP is being used by people who don't know anything else is just subjective and wrong, and ultimately nothing but flamebait.

That wasn't my allegation, though it's a good point you bring; PHP is sold as a language for novices, and novices tend to use it, despite being the most difficult language in common use due to its innumerable pitfalls, which isn't aided by the poor instruction material all over.

> You can get cheap PHP devs because PHP is so ubiquitous. You can also get really good ones.

No, but really, the pay is generally less. Being a good PHP dev is less profitable than being a good Java or Ruby one, if the same holds for other countries, then I guess that accounts even more for the reputation of the language (people who are actually good programmers tend to move to other languages for better pay among other things).

And, you know, this wasn't the point. With much better alternatives available, why choose PHP if not for familiarity or cheapness of labour?

> PHP is sold as a language for novices, and novices tend to use it

These things are highly cyclical as I said, and I believe "PHP for absolute dummies"-style literature is already well past its heyday, being replaced by "RoR for absolute dummies" and, in time, other languages and frameworks. I agree about the pitfalls and that PHP is not a good language for beginners.

> Being a good PHP dev is less profitable than being a good Java or Ruby one

I don't know, it's possible. I look at this from an all-rounder's perspective, so the process is generally different. In most cases, language choice is something that happens after the project's needs have been identified. And yes, sometimes that does mean I suggest PHP when I think it's appropriate. It's never been an issue once, neither as far a client acceptance nor technical follow-through was concerned.

> why choose PHP if not for familiarity or cheapness of labour?

There are a few factors that influence this, and the developer's taste is always a big one. When in doubt I tend to avoid the application server pattern. But things that have moved me towards PHP in the past were pretty diverse. PHP's per-request execution model can have big advantages, especially when dealing with huge applications. Depending on the nature of the project, development speed can be faster. Sometimes I choose PHP over another solution because I know there will be less code to write (and I avoid it in situations where a PHP solution would be more complex). Server availability and access to support personnel can also be a factor.

You're living in a HN bubble if you seriously think no new projects are being created in PHP, or if you think there are no valid use cases for PHP in modern applications.

Simply take a look at popular job sites - you don't even have to look at Monster.

PHP devs may be the cheapest as a whole because there's so many. If you're dead-set on finding a Go programmer they will come at a cost because there's so few.

Once you get into the higher level of skill, though, it starts evening out. IIRC the average senior salary for Ruby/RoR devs is only ~$5,000 more than a PHP dev.

> You're living in a HN bubble if you seriously think no new projects are being created in PHP, or if you think there are no valid use cases for PHP in modern applications.

I asked for reasons. You just told me it happens. I know it happens, I want to see a solid justification.

> Simply take a look at popular job sites - you don't even have to look at Monster.

For less pay.

> Once you get into the higher level of skill, though, it starts evening out. IIRC the average senior salary for Ruby/RoR devs is only ~$5,000 more than a PHP dev.

Why shouldn't I take the job with better pay and a better language?

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