Re: [chiPHPug-discuss] In defense of PHP

[Benjamin H. <ben...@gm...>]

Its not worth getting into a flamewar, they can get quite emotionally
charged!  For reasons I'm not exactly sure why, I've seen major eruptions
taking place across the internet lately over how one language or web
framework is better than the others.  Its interesting, and there are some
valid points that are made.  But I remember having read this article a few
years ago, and because of it, dismiss these discussions as being rather
petty.

As programmers we should have better problems to solve than which language
to use (though my patience is personally wearing quite thin for Java as my
employer is currently using JVM 1.3 which was released circa 2000).  There
are many that are used for developing web application solutions, and each do
have idiosyncrasies, some are pros for certain problems, some are cons.

Ultimately, there are few reasons why one technology is so vastly better
than the other alternatives (especially if the application in question is
already functioning in one of these "inferior" alternative languages) that
you have no choice but to use the "superior" language.  Sure in Python, the
philosophy is that if the functionality you're trying to implement is
getting complex, you're probably doing it the wrong way.  And in Ruby on
Rails, learning and adopting the convention of the "rails way" can save you
time and headaches (but don't dare deviate from this convention, which you
must break in certain programming problems negating the benefits of the
framework).  This is one way to not shoot yourself in the foot as a
programmer, and it is a handy characteristic of Python.  You can implement
coding practices, standards and methodologies that address this issue in
other languages or environments.  And sure, in PHP the comparison operators
might not be intuitive or the most elegant, or the interpreter have some
shortcomings, or version 5 might not be compatible with version 4, or the
database functions not be consistent between engines though these
shortcomings does not preclude a programmer from developing nifty solutions
within PHP.  There are plenty of examples of good software and well designed
websites which rely on PHP.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

Also, a more prudent approach to the "one language vs another", if that is
truly the question that must be answered, is the programming language
popularity index.  It stands to reason that between Python and PHP, PHP will
arguably be easier to attract contributors due to the community of abled PHP
programmers being larger!  Same with Ruby/RoR.

http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm

That being said, I think using C for web development is a bad idea.

Also and on topic, SitePoint recently published the results of their survey
"The State of Web Development 2006/2007"  It is very interesting, some of
the methodology I question, but a great overview of what people are doing.
It does show an overwhelming large base of PHP developers of their sample
group.

Ben

On 10/1/07, Steven <coo...@ya...> wrote:
>
> This art hosting site that I'm a member of has started a topic on their
> forums announcing that they're going to be redesigning their entire site
> from scratch and that they're looking for volunteers, whether it be coding,
> beta testing, whatever. The current head programmer has decided that they're
> going to do it in Python using the Pylons and SQLAlchemy frameworks.
> Whatever those are. I tried reading some of the Pylons framework's website
> and couldn't understand what the heck they were talking about.
>
> Of course, someone decides to step in and mention that it could simply be
> done in PHP, but much to my irritation, that sparks a debate on the verge of
> a flame war in which every programming staff member of that site bashes PHP
> and considers it a horrible language that "resists being written nicely".
> And since they're so close-minded about it, I of course decide to step in:
> http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=12643&pid=218320#pid218320
> (Yes, it's furaffinity. *chuckles*)
>
> What I find strangest is that these programming staff members seem to know
> infinitely more than I do about programming. Yet they are so close-minded on
> PHP that they'll re-write their entire website and forum from the ground up
> using frameworks and a language that's more for PC programming rather than
> in a language designed for the web?
>
> This is confusing. How can someone become as knowledgeable in programming
> as they apparently are yet not see how good PHP is for web things? Do they
> see something I don't?
>
> I'm beginning to wonder if PHP has any merit at all. What does PHP have
> that other languages doesn't that makes it worth using. Does PHP even have
> any advantages to other languages?
>
> You guys are probably the closest to a PHP authority that I have easy
> access to, so I pose the above question to you guys. Reinforce my view of my
> 'native' language being a good one. Or at least give me some grounds to
> stand on should I need to defend PHP in a debate like the one I mentioned
> above.
>
> ~Amaroq Wolf
>
>
>
>
>
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