rofl

"That other comment was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek :)" I somehow failed to comprehend your humor. But, from above comment, it seems I was not incorrect in detecting your stance about PHP.

In your article "fractal of bad design", you have listed problems in PHP. You can get a lot of similar articles, from Google, that list problems in other languages.

PHP (or any other language for that matter) doesn't do disservice to anyone or any community. None is forcing you to use PHP. If PHP doesn't work for you, you are free to find another language that works for you.

Every language has caveats. But good news is - there are a lot people trying to improve the languages.

You are trying to find a solution like mod_php. But PHP community has that solution already. So, PHP has something right, right? It is always good when you try to do something to make the language of your choice better than talking bad about a language you dislike. Good that you are trying something to make something better.

Phone cameras have improved. So has PHP. PHP 5 is better than PHP 4. But if you expect PHP to have all features of Python, then it will become Python. PHP doesn't want to become Python or Java or Ruby. And that is the most important part. PHP is popular because the way it is. It is not the most well designed language in the world. It never intends to have all features taught in programming languages class. Unlike Java, it never tries to be everywhere. PHP just makes it easy to create dynamic web pages. It will not force you to use OOP. It will not force you to use Camel case. It will not force you create XML config files. It will not force you to set type of variables. In short it gives you a lot of freedom and power. But, with freedom and power, comes responsibility. As a developer it is your responsibility to use OOP when needed. It is your responsibility to use right coding style.

Just imagine a world where you can't choose anything. The computer store forces you to buy a Macbook, even though you can't afford one, because the store believes that is the right tool for you. You got to university and the university forces you to take courses they think right for you. You go for buying holiday package and the travel company forces you to choose your destination because they know, based on their experience, what is right for you. Such world without options will be terrible.

So, let the craftsperson choose what works best for his or her work. Don't force anyone to use anything just because you think that is right for them.

If you love Python, you can tell people why you love that language and how using that labguage makes programming fun. After listening to you, people can try Python. If they like the language, they will keep using the language. But going to a PHP thread and then writing limitations about the language or writing bad things about the community is nothing but negative criticism which is bad for everyone.

"2007" Yes, Derek wrote the article in 2007 but the facts are still correct.

"then he revise him opinion about the ruby/rails" : Derek didn't revise his opinion (at least I am not aware of that). But I know this. The creators of Rails read the article [1] by Derek. Since, Derek is a popular person on the Internet and he has a lot of followers, his article on his failure to switch to Rails can really make a lot of people stay away from Rails. And this is bad news for the the creators and promoters of Rails. So, the obvious strategy, for the creators of Rails, was to convert Derek into a Rails user to reduce the damage on popularity of Rails caused by Derek's article. So, he was invited to RailsConf. When Derek is invited at RailsConf, do you expect him to talk against Rails at the conf? So, you get the point! Derek can get invited to RailsConf and talk a bit of good things about Rails (and he tried to learn Rails, once more, later), but that doesn't change the original experience he had with Rails when he tried to switch from PHP to Rails. * I don't dislike Rails. I just made an attempt to present the the facts in response to your comment *

"Some language are better than others" : Some language are better than others depending on what you are building.

"PHP suffers for some serious design" : True. So, does any other language. There is no perfect language available on this Earth.

"The are A LOT of articles on the internet" : True. There are many articles that point out problems - Some of them list problems in PHP, some list problems in Rails, some list problems in Python and so on.

"Is so easy to start with php that even a non programming guy will succeed!" : Yes, That is why Derek, without a background in CS, could buy a book on PHP and create first CDBaby site. There are many other examples available on Internet.

"The same for java/ruby/python/go" : I don't deny, because I am not here to talk against any language. If a language works for you, that's great.

"But when you have to use your brain, when you have to do some stuff that are than CRUD then is complicated." : If it is not easy to get started, then you will never reach a point when you will need to use your brain.

"And is so fuckin' easy to screw up in php" : If you don't know how to handle something you can screw up easily with anything. Programming is a skill one acquires over time. It takes time because you learn to avoid the ways that make you screw up. You can screw up easily with any language if you don't know how to use the language.

"facebook is using php not because is cool, but because of legacy code" : Where is the link to source to prove your claim? Facebook has enough money to replace all PHP codes, but instead of replacing PHP they have invested money to improve PHP (HipHop is one example).

[1] http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_swit...

First, I don't dislike Python (or Go).

Second, I don't dislike Python (or Go) community.

Third, a group of the Python community (and people from that group who migrated from Python to Go) that bashes other languages and communities at every opportunity deserve such nickname.

It is the venomous Snakes that bite others for no reason.

"I think he wishes that the other languages would make deployment as easy as it is for PHP" Oops! You are right. Thanks. My honest mistake.

He said in another thread "Right, because we'd spit on it and advertise Rust or Go" [1]. I read that and that created the confusion in my mind probably.

Whenever I see any post about PHP on HN, some people (almost all the Snake lovers, and new Go enthusiasts converted from Snake community) start bashing PHP. That's so bad. So, when I saw above mentioned comment [1], I just wanted to tell him that "PHP is just a tool and that is as good as any other programming language if not better. You can be happy with your language. No need to say anything bad about any other language.".

If someone likes Python or Go, that's fine. Why should he or she try to prove other languages inferior?

mod_php surely makes it easy for anyone to get up and running PHP. It is not clear why Snake lovers, who bash PHP always, couldn't create a good and easy deployment solution so far!

Just want to make it clear, I don't have any problem with Python or Go or any other programming language, I just think it is time for the Snake lovers and Google lovers to STOP bashing other languages and users of other languages.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6567001

The huge problem is you are complaining about tools used by other developers. Pick up tools that work best for you and let others choose tools that work best for them.

There is no inferior tool in this world. You select a tool based on your need, affordability and choice.

The important part is not the tool itself, it is what you make with your tool. We remember Leonardo da Vinci for his creations, not for the tools he had used to make those creations happen.

As of now, the most popular cameras in Flickr community are Apple iPhone 5, Apple iPhone 4S and Apple iPhone 4. All of these are phone cameras. You can see awesome photographs taken with these cameras. If you make a rule to accept photographs taken only using expensive DSLRs, sites like Flickr will not exist. And the world will be little less beautiful without sites like Flickr. By the way, Flickr is also powered by PHP.

You can not make "the most popular language for web development" without attracting a few jealous people and their negativities.

Like it or not, PHP is THE most popular language for developing web applications. And it didn't reach that rank without merits.

Sun pushed Java, Microsoft pushed C#, Google pushed Python in direct and indirect ways (but Google gave up on Python and created Go).

No big company spent a lot of money to push PHP (Yahoo started using PHP when it was already popular). PHP reached there because it had some merits in it.

- PHP is easy to get started and it helps people without CS background to learn it quickly and code apps to solve problems.

- PHP doesn't force you to use OOP unless you need or want that.

A musician named Derek Sivers who had no CS background created CDBaby website after following instructions in a PHP book. When Rails fanboys were making a lot of news, Derek decided to use Rails and scrap the original PHP codes [1]. He hired a top Rails developer and spent a lot of money (compared to the money - i.e. cost of a book on PHP - spent on his original PHP code) to rebuild CDBaby in Rails. The project eventually failed - time and money lost. CDBaby continued to grow rapidly and the site was powered by PHP codes. By telling this story, I am not trying to say Ruby and Rails are hard or bad. Ruby and Rails are tools just like PHP. The point I want to make with this story is PHP can get almost anyone up and running without much difficulties. Many people could get into business easily because of the ease of PHP. Just think if Derek had tried to make his first site using Rails! Probably, we would have never known the story of CDBaby.

I believe, the purpose of a programming language is to make it easy for user (of the language) to create solution instead of trying to prove the greatness (e.g. lot of features) of itself or it's creator.

Why is PHP easy?

PHP is easy because Rasmus Lerdorf didn't have CS background. He didn't want to create a language to have all the features and concepts taught/learn in a CS class of programming languages. Rasmus just wanted to create a tool to easily publish pages dynamically on web.

On the other hand, you can take a look at Java if you want to know how a language looks when the creator has PhD in CS and wants to apply all his knowledge of CS in the language. I am NOT trying to bash Java or Gosling, just trying to explain why some languages are created complex and difficult.

TL;DR: PHP is just a tool like Ruby or C. It has plus and minus points like any other language. PHP makes it easy to get up and running (even if you don't have a degree in CS). If you like PHP (after you try it), stick to it (because with PHP, you can get atleast as big as Facebook). If you don't like it, pick another language that works for you. And this last point is mainly for Snake lovers on HN : never bite a language (or users of that language) because you don't like or use that language.

[1] http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_swit...

This is a huge problem in you if you don't know how to use your tool as a developer. PHP is just a tool. If you don't like this tool called PHP, use another tool like Snake or Python or whatever, and be happy. Have you seen a top carpenter ever to go to another carpenter to complain about the hammer used by the other carpenter?

Edit: Formatting

"...and there we go" - exactly what I thought. lol.