Comment by smacktoward | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smacktoward | Hacker News Reader

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> What draws people to PHP now?

PHP is easily and inexpensively deployed on commodity hosting.

PHP has a large base of existing code that can be re-used and built upon.

PHP has a large base of existing documentation that can be learned to get up to speed on it.

PHP has a large base of existing developers whose knowledge can be tapped into via services like StackExchange.

Most of these advantages aren't really intrinsic to PHP-the-language so much as they are to PHP's position in the marketplace. PHP is popular because it's easy to deploy, but it's also easy to deploy because it's popular -- hosts and admins are willing to put work into supporting PHP that they're less willing to put into supporting languages with smaller user bases, because the upside for doing so is so much bigger. But that doesn't mean they're not advantages.

On the plus side, PHP-the-language has gotten a lot better and more pleasant to use over the last few years. It's still got warts, as you note, but it's a long way from the incoherent grab bag of functions that it started out as. And while it's definitely possible to architecture-astronaut it (cough Symfony cough), it's also possible in PHP 5 to write reasonable clean, modern-feeling code without having to jump through a gazillion flaming hoops.

>PHP is easily and inexpensively deployed on commodity hosting.

So is everything else now that dirt cheap VMs are the norm.

>PHP has a large base of existing documentation that can be learned to get up to speed on it.

Much of which is wrong or even dangerous.

>PHP has a large base of existing developers whose knowledge

A large number of developers, but most of them possess a shockingly small amount of knowledge.

>>PHP is easily and inexpensively deployed on commodity hosting. So is everything else now that dirt cheap VMs are the norm.

Not easy enough for most people.

>Much of which is wrong or even dangerous.

If it stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.

>A large number of developers, but most of them possess a shockingly small amount of knowledge.

The 10% of people with the vast knowledge are not going to write the 100% of the software, so the people with "small amount of knowledge" will still be there.

Just like you don't just have Picassos but also regular painters.

Your reply contains nothing of substance, and very little that is even of relevance.

Em, considering that this comment of yours is just a blanket accusation, without any arguments at all, whereas I replied to the parent point by point, the proverb "people living in glasshouses", etc comes to mind.

I, for one, in my comment:

1) reminded that the availability of "dirt cheap VMs" doesn't make PHP installation any easier compared to a hosting provider (just drop PHP files into folder -- or just select a PHP app to be installed from a Web panel).

2) Having lots of documentation is a benefit, even if "much of it is wrong" in some way. It it works, people will use it, be it wrong or not, and they will get bootstrapped enough with their app to eventually replace it with something better. If we demanded near perfection from everyone, the web would be 1/1000 the size -- it's the ability to also have "wrong" stuff work that made it huge.

3) That "most of PHP developers posses shockingly small amount of knowledge" is not against but in favour of the language. Those people also need to get something done, and if they can achieve that with PHP, more power to them.

The complaints are elitist cries, that only some deeply knowledgable programmers should be allowed to code stuff for the web.

I find the possibility of somebody with limited knowledge writing a webpage or even a webapp in PHP empowering. And if you don't like to consider my opinion, ask Derek Shivers.

> "dirt cheap VMs" doesn't make PHP installation

> any easier compared to a hosting provider

This is easy, even for a beginner:

yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel

Consider the effort that a PHP developer has to put into editing the vhost of the Apache config. And usually the php.ini file needs to be tweaked. And often there is an .htaccess file with a few mod_rewrite rules (think of WordPress, Drupal, etc) There might easily be a solid 30 minutes of configuration to get PHP/Apache set up to run the way you want it to run.

If I want to use Clojure? I use "yum install" to be sure the server has a functioning JVM. Then I usually set my routes using Compojure, the syntax of which is certainly easier than Apache mod_rewrite. And then for the server I often simply go with Jetty, which is a 1 line dependency, and I bundle it all up with "lein uberjar".

This is the point that I made above: in the spring of 2000, PHP was the easiest thing available to me. That is why I used it. But the world has changed, and now there are other options that are at least as easy. "Ease of setup" was a very strong argument in favor of PHP in the spring of 2000, but it is not a good argument now. There ecosystems, such as the Clojure ecosystem, that offer setups that are at least as easy as configuring Apache and PHP.

Virtual hosts in Apache? mod_rewrite? Your understanding of modern PHP development really is circa 2000. Try replacing those with nginx and PHP-FPM for a start.

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