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PHP-GTK based IDE for Midgard and PHP
bergie writes: "The new IDE for Midgard and PHP developers is entirely written in PHP using the PHP-GTK toolkit. PHPmole aims to provide the free software world with a web development environment comparable to DreamWeaver and MS Visual Studio, with additional content management functionalities. PHP is not only for web developers any more ..."
I'm afraid it's not changed much from that state, although some work is going into fixing some of it's biggest failings.
:)
The object model is being improved significantly in <a href="http://www.zend.org/zend/future.php">Zend Engine 2</a> (Zend being what powers PHP4), with namespaces (implimented as nested classes you pretend you can't instantiate), and object handles rather than hacks on the hash implimentation. It still lacks nice features like iterators, but it is at least moving in the right direction.
The shove-everything-in-the-default-namespace mentality is still there, meaning you either code functionally or write OO wrappers for everything (not to mention how bloated it becomes; when used for standalone apps, having it driven by a binary that's linked to to pretty much everything kinda looses it's appeal).
Keywords are still unusable anywhere; you can't have methods called Print(), or Import(), not even if you fully qualify them (maybe I'm spoilt by Ruby
The dodgy case sensitivity issues are still there; functions are not case sensitive, variables are (hence you can't use Print() in a class, despite the keyword being print). With the new object model where you can just use methodCall() instead of $this->methodCall() I can see this biting people more in future.
(include|require)_once are still there, and are the usual way to include any file; that's 4 statements that do pretty much the same thing, with the longer uglier ones being the most common. A Perlish 'use Package::Module::Class' statement may help here, although it's only just being discussed seriously.
The language still lacks any real specification; features are added and removed on the whims of the developers, occasionally based on the feedback from users, who sometimes miss obvious problems with changes until it's worryingly late.
On the plus side, they do take backward compatibility fairly seriously and aren't always afraid to break it to introduce badly wanted new features (hence case sensitivity is an unlikely candidate to be changed, but the new OO model might break things).
At the end of the day, I wouldn't use it for anything other than web stuff; the language simply isn't that good. The biggest plus point is it's truely kickass server embedding support, but beyond that there are much better alternatives.
After reading some fo the previous posts, I though it would be nice to explain why I chose to write phpmole in php.. however it's a bit dificult to avoid the 'one language is better than the other ' issue, anyway this is roughly some of the reasoning.. - very much my opinion having done a bit too much PHP (or was that LSD :)
.Net's hidden adgenda appears to make all these language imposilbe to integrate into the .NET CLR by design (as it has design critera that alienates non declared variable languages)!
:)
......
These where some of the options (That are vaguely cross platform).
A compiled language C or C++ - the history of programs like evolution, which suffered extensive delays and has been the driving force of miguel (from what I've read/heard) moving toward C# is evidence that the concept of developing all of a large scale application in only a high level language is fraught with problems - generally thought to be problems with memory management, (Im not actually sure that C# will prove a much better alternative).
Java and C# , bytecode compiled languages, object orientated languages with strict variable definitions, again, these offer a few benifits over the high level languages, where the reduction of memory management consideration in coding improves productivity. It's just since C# is not ready on linux yet, and Java is a pain to install on debian (thanks to suns licencing), And from a long experience of getting Java going on different platforms it was obvious that trusting MS to keep java running correctly on windows was a recipe for disaster!.
Scripted, loose typed (non decleared variabled), runtime bytecode compiled languages like Python, Pike, Perl, and Ruby - These are extremely good as prototyping languages where the slower bits can be speeded up by writing extenstions in C etc. Almost all of these languages have similar advantages, Perl and PHP have strong variable identifiers, ruby and pike have strong object orientation. - noteable in
Others like delphi - which is not open souce, or particualy stable on linux....
lisp and it's friends - which after having spent 3 years writing scripts/applications in, I never would want to touch again.
Having developed in Pike,Python and Perl
(they do have their good points, but these are the ones that are -for me - significant downsides)
Perl - write once, never touch again - it is near impossible to write clear readable perl = even a 20 line shell script is a pain to work with later.
Pike - nice language, but it has a very small following and limited documenation (not critical mass)
Python - unclear object instantation referencing - difficult to read if you are using a static or dynamic class reference. (I believe that has improved, but it was increadibly fustrating to deal with) - probably the only other serious competition to PHP....
Ruby - again looks like another very nice language, similar to pike, but the big issue is that critical mass is important as it affects the quality and quantity of both documentation, extensions and sample code that are made available.
So in chosing a language for phpmole, these where the factors that where important.
1. Speed of development - no double compile/execute process
2. Documentation - online (well at least for the main language)!
3. Clarity of reading pure code - following most of PEAR rules tends to make PHP that reads like a book.
4. Object orientation - just the basics!
5. Source code! - the language source was written and organized in a clear enough way that it could be fixed if necessary. = no unexpected problems.
6. Speed - since there only a small load up 'compile' penalty on the language start up, after that it behaves like any other bytecode language.
7. Similarity to C - the extension language - making it easy in theory to build accelerate a section by rewriting it in C.
8. Sample code and libraries already written that can be extended. - Although most people think of PHP as a few prints in a web page, it has a much better written set of libraries in PEAR.php.net and a big black hole of libraries from phpclasses.upperdesign.com.
9. large existing userbase - which contributes to 2 & 8 and may even contribute to the mole
10. cross platform - other than Ada (which I've never tried), the only other option would be java which has the same downsides as delphi in stability on the desktop.
Things that where not available that are not important in 98% of development - and make life confusing anyway..
1. Weird and wonderfull Object orientation and functional features - polymorphism and all those other much banded catchphrases but totally useless for rapid applicatoin development and tend to cause more problems than they solve.
The only downside that I have found so far in PHP GTK is the lack of thread support , for the most part this can be worked around (using gtk::events_pending() calls, or forking(pcntl), sockets and a bit of intelligence...), - adding threading obviously has significant downsides is that it is a large black hole of introducing bugs from poor variable locking as well.... = give yourself enough rope
Obviously with PHP5 , the multiple interitance (using aggregation), exceptions - catch throw, and yet more extensions available, It will make developing applications like phpmole will become even easier.
As far as design, from my impressions - PHP is designed to be similar to C/C++, but with variable identifiers and a simplified 'user friendly' object orientation.
anyway a discussion like this could go on for ever....
Taking PHP to the next level: phpmole, php codedoc, php-gtk pear installer, DataObjects for php, ldap schema viewer and
By "dynamic" I assume it means dynamically scoped. Lexical scoping is an important feature, introduced by Scheme in the 1970s, that today is the unquestioned best way to scope variables. Perl and Python were both dynamically scoped when first released, but switched to lexical scoping later.
Macros let you customize the language to specific application domains, resulting in very readable code. They are a feature that is difficult to duplicate in languages without lisp-like syntax. C preprocessor macros are nothing by comparison.
Autolisp missed out on a lot by not having macros. Also objects. The Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is one of CL's most vaunted features.
I'm not saying that a LISP dialect would have been better for this particular project. It certainly fails on the "Similarity to C" qualification. Just don't take your experience with autolisp as indicative of what LISP programming is like.