Hacker News Reader

Comment by svnpenn | Hacker News Reader

I love PHP, it fits that niche of having a fast startup like Perl, while having a big standard library like Python. However after using Go and Rust, I don't like the idea of the package manager being this separate thing (Composer).

I think the package manager should be part of the PHP distribution itself, not some other thing that people have to find and install separately. I am fine if people want to implement other/better package managers, but I think the PHP distribution should include something, if only a rudimentary tool.

View on HN

Composer is the de facto package manager for PHP. I’ve never seen anyone try to compete with it.

I also don’t believe a bundled package manager is necessary — NPM isn’t bundled with JavaScript, and it seems to be doing ok.

> I’ve never seen anyone try to compete with it.

Back in the day, there was PEAR, but it was never particularly useful.

> NPM isn’t bundled with JavaScript, and it seems to be doing ok

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. If you install the Node runtime, it comes with NPM. So it seems you're not correct about this, unless you are referring to some other runtime. And even if you are, why would some other runtime include NPM?

>>I also don’t believe a bundled package manager is necessary — NPM isn’t bundled with JavaScript, and it seems to be doing ok.

>I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. If you install the Node runtime...And even if you are, why would some other runtime include NPM?

Node nor any other package managers are included with JS. You seem to be emphasizing their point.

huh? Node is a JavaScript runtime. Its the "base thing". Its "JavaScript", at least in the sense that we are talking about here. So saying "Node isn't included", doesn't really make sense.

When you install Node, you also get NPM, which is essentially what I said in the previous comment.

> When you install Node, you also get NPM, which is essentially what I said in the previous comment.

The other person said that JS also doesn't include a package manager. It sounds like you wanted to take issue with the colloquial use of NPM rather than their point about package managers not being included.

> I also don’t believe a bundled package manager is necessary — NPM isn’t bundled with JavaScript, and it seems to be doing ok.

No, what they said was:

> NPM isn’t bundled with JavaScript

which, if you install Node, NPM is included

Node isn't included with JavaScript. No package managers are included with JavaScript.

You're splitting hairs about Node/NPM which is completely irrelevant to their point about JavaScript not having package managers built in.

mmm.. to be fair, I think you're making the point for them. Also, I would be of the opinion that browsers provide a more common runtime than node.

> Composer is the de facto package manager for PHP. I’ve never seen anyone try to compete with it.

According to common PHP culture, there's no need - since it's already good enough. Instead of re-inventing something you can just move on and get your own sh*t done. :)

(edit: formatting)

On the other hand JS now has many package managers yarn, pnpm and even competing runtimes deno, bun that include their package managers and have often incompatible code.

Composer is atleast undisputed, embraced and works well. Anything PHP is on there. Package formats are unified not like in JS.

Pythons PIP is also separate project.

Python's pip is developed separately, but the main repository is operated by PSF (authors of Python), and python's source code nowadays contains the "ensurepip" module to install pip if needed and official binary releases contain pip directly.

What do you think the advantages would be over a de-facto standard?

Think about it like this. How would you feel about Go, Rust or Node, removing their package managers from all new versions? Then they make a blog post saying, "we are going to let the rich community handle any future work of developing and distributing a package manager".

PHP is a community project where Go and Rust are corporate sponsored projects. It makes sense for php where it would seem foreign to those projects.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com