Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

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It's fine to like PHP and I'm willing to believe that modern PHP is a lot better than what it used to be but it annoys me that every time the language is brought up these days some people feel like rewriting history to pretend that PHP-bashing 15years ago was just a baseless memes made by haters who didn't get it.

There was plenty of wrong with PHP. There were very unsafe defaults, poor API choices, poor coding standards, inconsistent syntax, paper-thin C bindings that didn't provide the level of abstraction you'd expect from a scripting language etc... If you've forgotten what PHP used to be you can just take a trip down memory lane by browsing through this classic: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ . Lest we forget PHP was started as a templating engine that evolved haphazardly into a full fledged programming language, and it showed.

If you think PHP is a good language today then say that, but let's not pretend that the complaints and ridicule were always undeserved.

> If you think PHP is a good language today then say that, but let's not pretend that the complaints and ridicule were always undeserved.

It's a question of when do you let that go?

Right, I don't think it's necessarily the people that are _for_ PHP are ignoring the past, it's that the people _against_ PHP are still stuck in it.

This is a common straw man; PHP 5 and 7 made large strides, but that's because there was so much to fix, and there still is and will continue to be, like lack of first class functions, actual modules, etc. PHP is also unsuitable for persistent processes like serving WebSocket.

Ratchet works fine.

Why do you need "actual modules"? I feel that (when PSR-4 is followed) PHP's code separation practices are among the best, especially compared to other interpreted web-languages (Python, Ruby, js). And it's convenient while experimenting that it doesn't really enforce anything.

Without modules there can be dependency hell: conflicting subdependency versions, unless all your dependencies update their subdependencies in lockstep.

Websockets are no problem with Ratchet. OhDear is a high traffic app that uses laravel-websocket (based on Ratchet) with absolutely no performance issues.

They probably still have to maintain systems running PHP 5, and are quite literally stuck in it ;-)

Never, since PHP is fundamentally flawed, and trying to redesign it would make the split between Python 2 and 3 pale in comparison. PHP's main selling point is backwards compatibility and the existing ecosystem; a fundamental redesign would remove that. PHP's name is also mud when it comes to programming language design, and its community is notorious for poor practices, so no one's really clamoring for a more modern PHP.

The bitter truth for PHP stans is that it is what it is, you can get things done, and you can have valid reasons for using it (like legacy reasons, job market, etc.), but it's rightfully trending down and will continue to.

Oh, PHP definitely sucked before 5.

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