Slashdot Mirror
Spring Into PHP 5
Michael J. Ross writes "A professional programmer could at any time be tasked with developing a nontrivial application using a language or Web technology with which he or she is unfamiliar. A common response is to quickly scan code snippets in Internet newsgroups and online tutorials, copy and paste code that looks applicable to the task at hand, and then lose valuable time trying to make it all work and control what was created -- not unlike Dr. Frankenstein's experience. A smarter approach is to learn the language basics in sequence as rapidly as possible, not getting bogged down in excessive sample code. For developers seeking to learn PHP using the latter approach, Steven Holzner's Spring Into PHP 5, published by Addison-Wesley, would be an excellent choice." Read on for the rest of Ross's review.
Spring Into PHP 5
author
Steven Holzner
pages
340
publisher
Addison-Wesley
rating
8
reviewer
Michael J. Ross
ISBN
0131498622
summary
A comprehensive and no-nonsense primer on the basics of PHP.
This title is another entry in Addison-Wesley's promising "Spring Into" series, which, as suggested by the name, is aimed at developers who want to jump into a new technology and get up to speed as quickly as possible, but without missing any of the essentials. In the case of Holzner's PHP book, this goal is pursued by presenting the information in so-called "chunks," with each spanning just a few pages. Every chunk attempts to cover only one or a few related ideas, and is designed to build upon earlier chunks. The bulk of the explanation takes the form of code samples, which fortunately are short enough in length and clear enough in composition to be easily digestible. This is in stark contrast to far too many other programming books on the market, whose code samples can span multiple pages, making it difficult for the reader to discern all of the ideas that the author is trying to get across -- especially when the reader has to flip back and forth between pages. Even worse is how some authors (such as Deitel and Deitel) use lengthy code listings -- sometimes even complete applications -- to demonstrate many ideas at once, which can be quite confusing, especially for the newbie reading about a challenging language for the first time. As Holzner notes in his preface, his book is example-oriented, with dozens of tested code samples. But none are overwhelming.
Spring Into PHP 5 was published on 12 April 2005. It is organized into nine chapters, covering a range of topics: PHP essentials; operators and flow control; strings and arrays; functions; PHP in HTML pages; Web forms and input validation; object-oriented programming and file handling; PHP and databases; cookies, user sessions, FTP, e-mail, and hit counters. The book has two appendices. The first one, on PHP language elements, is remarkably complete, considering that it only fills 18 pages. Owners of the book will likely find themselves turning to this material quite frequently. The second appendix lists the most commonly used functions in PHP, particularly those dealing with arrays, strings, and files. These two appendices combined go a long way to making this book more than an approachable primer -- it could serve as a reference book for the language for any reader not required to dig into the more obscure intricacies of PHP. Readers with those needs will have to use more detailed sources, such as the online PHP Manual.
Each one of Holzner's chapters explains the core concepts, using the bite-sized chunks mentioned earlier. This approach is somewhat similar to the "recipes" found in many books published by O'Reilly Media, and it works well here for introducing a computer language. Holzner's writing style is clear yet never condescending, and concise yet never cryptic. The intended reader only really needs an understanding of simple HTML and how to edit text files, to make this book worthwhile and usable. The book is meaty with information, and yet not too lengthy. This is a refreshing change of pace from countless other computer language books that are bloated with redundant sample code and overly wide margins, apparently in an attempt to entice the consumer with maximum page count per dollar.
Some programming books try to move the novice along at too rapid a pace, which can get quite discouraging if and when the reader is unable to follow the discussion, and particularly if trying to follow the author in building a working example. But a far more common mistake among programming books, is to drag out the process with humongous code listings or redundant verbiage (such as following the senseless rule of telling the reader something three times -- a technique that makes far more sense for speechwriting). Holzner sets and maintains an excellent pace, partly by keeping the code snippets reasonably sized, and partly through his modular approach of presenting ideas in chunks.
The physical book itself is well made and attractive, with a readable font face and size, and intelligent use of bolding to highlight those lines of code upon which the reader should focus. My only complaint in terms of the presentation, is that the gray background used for the code samples could be lightened up a bit, to make the text itself stand out more, especially the bold text. All of the screenshots are in black-and-white, which works just fine, as there would be no value in using color in the majority of the sample Web pages.
The author does an excellent job of explaining and illustrating all of the most commonly used and needed elements of the language. But he provides little guidance as to when a particular technique or approach should be used over another. For instance, when explaining how the programmer can use PHP to connect to a MySQL database, the author presents two alternatives -- direct layer and Pear::DB -- but no recommendations as to the choice of one over the other. On the other hand, one might argue that to include recommendations of techniques, as well as language best practices, would require the book to be much longer than it is, which would detract from the book's goal of getting a programmer up to speed on PHP in an efficient manner. The serious programmer who wishes to take PHP to the next level, can be expected to read more advanced books, to learn from expert PHP developers posting in online newsgroups, and to learn from experience as the programmer creates his or her own applications.
Another potential point of criticism could be that the book does not adequately explain how to use PHP with the various available database systems, only covering MySQL (the industry's favorite for use with PHP). But the database chapter, number 8, provides just enough information for the beginner to get started and to try out the basics. For simple database needs, the material in that chapter might be sufficient. Yet for more extensive MySQL usage, including installation and administration, other resources will need to be consulted. This book is clearly not intended to be one of those PHP + MySQL combo books that have proven so popular during the past few years.
The publisher's Web site for the book does not appear to have any collection of errata. Here are some that I found: On page 6, in the NOTE, "scripts can be used" should read "scripts cannot be used." On page 20, "#/ message to the user" should read "# message to the user." On page 49, in Table 2-4, in the last line, the formatting is partly wrong. Examples 3-1 through 4-14 contain incorrect indentation. On page 158, the last line in the $_FILES['userfile'] values is missing $_FILES['userfile']['error']. In Examples 5-19 and 5-20, the <head> and <h1> tags are missing ": Take 1." On page 169, the formatting of Example 6-2 is inconsistent with the others.
Aside from the errata, there were some other weaknesses -- none of them serious: The chapter summaries are useless, like in most other technical books, as there's not enough details to be instructive, and more details would make them even more redundant and space-consuming. On page 176, in Figure 6-6's caption, "Navigating" should be "Redirected." On page 197, the discussion of HTTP authentication is too brief to enable the typical reader to implement it. For instance, there is no mention of where to set $_SERVER[ 'PHP_AUTH_USER' ] to make it work. Chapter 7, on object-oriented programming and file handling, should be split into two chapters. Combining them makes no sense, and the author does not even transition from the first topic to the second.
Like others in the "Spring Into" series, this title is reasonably priced, at only $29.99 list for over 300 pages of quality material. The publisher, Addison-Wesley, has a page on their Web site devoted to the book, which includes a book description, a table of contents, an index, source code from the book, and a link for downloading a sample chapter (in PDF format), namely, Chapter 3, which covers strings and arrays. The site also has a link to a bonus chapter (also in PDF) that explains how to draw graphics interactively on a Web server and then send them back to the browser. Oddly enough, the page's title is "Spring Into PHP 5 - $20.99," but there's no indication as to how to get the book for only $20.99. That could simply be a typo. But there is a link to purchase the book online for $26.99. For those looking to spring into Web server-side development in general, or PHP in particular, it would be money well spent.
Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter for PristinePlanet.com. You can purchase Spring Into PHP 5 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
This title is another entry in Addison-Wesley's promising "Spring Into" series, which, as suggested by the name, is aimed at developers who want to jump into a new technology and get up to speed as quickly as possible, but without missing any of the essentials. In the case of Holzner's PHP book, this goal is pursued by presenting the information in so-called "chunks," with each spanning just a few pages. Every chunk attempts to cover only one or a few related ideas, and is designed to build upon earlier chunks. The bulk of the explanation takes the form of code samples, which fortunately are short enough in length and clear enough in composition to be easily digestible. This is in stark contrast to far too many other programming books on the market, whose code samples can span multiple pages, making it difficult for the reader to discern all of the ideas that the author is trying to get across -- especially when the reader has to flip back and forth between pages. Even worse is how some authors (such as Deitel and Deitel) use lengthy code listings -- sometimes even complete applications -- to demonstrate many ideas at once, which can be quite confusing, especially for the newbie reading about a challenging language for the first time. As Holzner notes in his preface, his book is example-oriented, with dozens of tested code samples. But none are overwhelming.
Spring Into PHP 5 was published on 12 April 2005. It is organized into nine chapters, covering a range of topics: PHP essentials; operators and flow control; strings and arrays; functions; PHP in HTML pages; Web forms and input validation; object-oriented programming and file handling; PHP and databases; cookies, user sessions, FTP, e-mail, and hit counters. The book has two appendices. The first one, on PHP language elements, is remarkably complete, considering that it only fills 18 pages. Owners of the book will likely find themselves turning to this material quite frequently. The second appendix lists the most commonly used functions in PHP, particularly those dealing with arrays, strings, and files. These two appendices combined go a long way to making this book more than an approachable primer -- it could serve as a reference book for the language for any reader not required to dig into the more obscure intricacies of PHP. Readers with those needs will have to use more detailed sources, such as the online PHP Manual.
Each one of Holzner's chapters explains the core concepts, using the bite-sized chunks mentioned earlier. This approach is somewhat similar to the "recipes" found in many books published by O'Reilly Media, and it works well here for introducing a computer language. Holzner's writing style is clear yet never condescending, and concise yet never cryptic. The intended reader only really needs an understanding of simple HTML and how to edit text files, to make this book worthwhile and usable. The book is meaty with information, and yet not too lengthy. This is a refreshing change of pace from countless other computer language books that are bloated with redundant sample code and overly wide margins, apparently in an attempt to entice the consumer with maximum page count per dollar.
Some programming books try to move the novice along at too rapid a pace, which can get quite discouraging if and when the reader is unable to follow the discussion, and particularly if trying to follow the author in building a working example. But a far more common mistake among programming books, is to drag out the process with humongous code listings or redundant verbiage (such as following the senseless rule of telling the reader something three times -- a technique that makes far more sense for speechwriting). Holzner sets and maintains an excellent pace, partly by keeping the code snippets reasonably sized, and partly through his modular approach of presenting ideas in chunks.
The physical book itself is well made and attractive, with a readable font face and size, and intelligent use of bolding to highlight those lines of code upon which the reader should focus. My only complaint in terms of the presentation, is that the gray background used for the code samples could be lightened up a bit, to make the text itself stand out more, especially the bold text. All of the screenshots are in black-and-white, which works just fine, as there would be no value in using color in the majority of the sample Web pages.
The author does an excellent job of explaining and illustrating all of the most commonly used and needed elements of the language. But he provides little guidance as to when a particular technique or approach should be used over another. For instance, when explaining how the programmer can use PHP to connect to a MySQL database, the author presents two alternatives -- direct layer and Pear::DB -- but no recommendations as to the choice of one over the other. On the other hand, one might argue that to include recommendations of techniques, as well as language best practices, would require the book to be much longer than it is, which would detract from the book's goal of getting a programmer up to speed on PHP in an efficient manner. The serious programmer who wishes to take PHP to the next level, can be expected to read more advanced books, to learn from expert PHP developers posting in online newsgroups, and to learn from experience as the programmer creates his or her own applications.
Another potential point of criticism could be that the book does not adequately explain how to use PHP with the various available database systems, only covering MySQL (the industry's favorite for use with PHP). But the database chapter, number 8, provides just enough information for the beginner to get started and to try out the basics. For simple database needs, the material in that chapter might be sufficient. Yet for more extensive MySQL usage, including installation and administration, other resources will need to be consulted. This book is clearly not intended to be one of those PHP + MySQL combo books that have proven so popular during the past few years.
The publisher's Web site for the book does not appear to have any collection of errata. Here are some that I found: On page 6, in the NOTE, "scripts can be used" should read "scripts cannot be used." On page 20, "#/ message to the user" should read "# message to the user." On page 49, in Table 2-4, in the last line, the formatting is partly wrong. Examples 3-1 through 4-14 contain incorrect indentation. On page 158, the last line in the $_FILES['userfile'] values is missing $_FILES['userfile']['error']. In Examples 5-19 and 5-20, the <head> and <h1> tags are missing ": Take 1." On page 169, the formatting of Example 6-2 is inconsistent with the others.
Aside from the errata, there were some other weaknesses -- none of them serious: The chapter summaries are useless, like in most other technical books, as there's not enough details to be instructive, and more details would make them even more redundant and space-consuming. On page 176, in Figure 6-6's caption, "Navigating" should be "Redirected." On page 197, the discussion of HTTP authentication is too brief to enable the typical reader to implement it. For instance, there is no mention of where to set $_SERVER[ 'PHP_AUTH_USER' ] to make it work. Chapter 7, on object-oriented programming and file handling, should be split into two chapters. Combining them makes no sense, and the author does not even transition from the first topic to the second.
Like others in the "Spring Into" series, this title is reasonably priced, at only $29.99 list for over 300 pages of quality material. The publisher, Addison-Wesley, has a page on their Web site devoted to the book, which includes a book description, a table of contents, an index, source code from the book, and a link for downloading a sample chapter (in PDF format), namely, Chapter 3, which covers strings and arrays. The site also has a link to a bonus chapter (also in PDF) that explains how to draw graphics interactively on a Web server and then send them back to the browser. Oddly enough, the page's title is "Spring Into PHP 5 - $20.99," but there's no indication as to how to get the book for only $20.99. That could simply be a typo. But there is a link to purchase the book online for $26.99. For those looking to spring into Web server-side development in general, or PHP in particular, it would be money well spent.
Michael J. Ross is a freelance writer, computer consultant, and the editor of the free newsletter for PristinePlanet.com. You can purchase Spring Into PHP 5 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
A professional programmer will never do the stupidity described in first paragraphs when dealing with new language and/or tool to perform task at hand. Although the book might be the best for beginners and advanced users, A PROfessional will not need it at all.
sex is better than war!
or bring in ideas from Perl or C to my PHP code to make it look more advanced
Who are you trying to impress? Why don't you just write whatever PHP you need to get the job done, no one cares if your code looks more advanced, it drives me nuts when people have this mentality in my office.
In my experience a language becomes useful when you also learn the frequent idioms and know the available toolkits.
A smarter approach is to learn the language basics in sequence as rapidly as possible, not getting bogged down in excessive sample code.
Excuse me? Maybe I'm an anomoly, but I can't think of a better way to learn a language than by example. This suspiciously sounds like and excuse to cover up the fact that the book doesn't offer adequate material to show how one can code in real-world environments.
When I look for a good programming book, be it an introduction, advanced tutorial or reference, the use of lots of examples is one of the main standards by which I judge the value of the publication.
"Plus the fact that it is a functional language at its core is not too appealing from a OOP perspective. Though, I use it to program my blog, go figure."
I figure that OOP is not the magic bullet many proclaim it to be. That some tasks fit the OOP model very well and others fit the functional model very well. And that PHP is a good language for certain applications, such as your blog.
Hmm lets see, time to compare a Web programming language vs a Framework.
Now you could compare Ruby to PHP or Rails to an mvc PHP framework like Cake.
But PHP against Ruby on Rails is Apples vs Oranges.
2. Programmers are writing extensive web applications entirely in Perl cgi, often taking months to do simple tasks that PHP or ASP can do in days.
Myth #4349: Perl takes longer to develop than PHP
Obviously you've never heard of CPAN or done anything more than pull some data out of a database and put it on a webpage. Anyone doing anything more than that on the web has to know something besides PHP since doing anything complex in PHP simply isn't very easy at all.
Personally I really hope the PHP fad will be over soon since I'm not holding my breath for it to become a better language. ( PHP is barely better than 4. They still didn't fix some of the biggest beefs that many people have with the language ). Of course when it is over we'll all be subjected to the Next Big Thing (tm) instead of using something serious for once.
(and I hope beyond hope the next big thing isn't Ruby on Rails)
The Anti-Blog
echo "TD> blah blah blah
echo "TD> and so on
echo "/TR";
echo "/TABLE";
ick.
And I remember somewhere it said PHP stands for "Pretty Home Pages"
wtf indeed.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
If the reviewer is really that confused, it might not be a good idea to take any of the points he makes too seroiusly.
"First, it has no mechanisms to enforce any kind of good web application design practices."
Can you name me a language that DOES have "mechanisms to enforce any kind of good web application design practices"? I'm not sure I can think of anything built into a language (i.e. not just an add-on library which, of course, PHP could provide) that does do this.
"Almost invariably, PHP apps are initially designed by people who are newcomers to programming and the web."
I've seen many state this and have suspected it myself, but have never come across any good statistical proof. Can you post your reference?
"But PHP doesn't provide any structure to help them make the right decisions,"
Can you give an example of this? I'd be interested to see a language feature of [insert other language here] that "helps [newcomers] make the right decision".
"so you end up with no separation between HTML and code, and you end up with an unmaintainable mess."
But what's to stop this from happening in ANY language? And what's to stop it NOT happening in PHP?
"Second, it's not a full-featured object-oriented programming environment like Java."
I'll give the you benefit of the doubt, here, and assume you missed that oh-so-important comma. However, I'd argue that "not object oriented" is not a fundamental flaw of a language. Say we only had OO languages RIGHT NOW. Do you think everything would run quite as smoothly?
"In Java, I can create objects, store them in sessions, hand them to threads, and store them using persistence frameworks. PHP has only the most rudimentary versions of such features."
Good for you. What are the advantages of doing what you're doing that obsolete PHP in every instance?
"Within a Servlet environment I can also create filters, something which doesn't exist in PHP."
Please explain more - I don't know what filters are. I'd be very surprised if PHP could not support whatever-they-are.
"There is hope. There are some tools like Smarty Templates and PEAR which help a little bit. In fact if beginners would force themselves to use Smarty Templates from the beginning they would get much better results."
I'll have to get back to you on Smarty.
"PHP doesn't have strong typing on variables, something which should be a part of any system that needs to be reliable."
WHY? How strong is the typing in the language used to write the OS you're running right now?
"There's no complition of PHP systems, which means that the only bugs are run-time bugs."
Why is a smaller number of classes of bugs inherently a bad thing? Or is that just an objective statement?
"PHP just isn't a good choice."
For what? Why? I'm still not sure I quite understand.
There was some discussion here at Slashdot a few days ago in another topic regarding the effect PHP is having on the reputation of Linux. Considering that it is often grouped with Linux in the LAMP model, and is also one of the more well-known open source projects, there has become a close assocation between the two in the eyes of the general public.
Now it's no secret that PHP has suffered from some pretty serious security issues as of late, such as the XML-RPC flaw. Then there are the routine problems of poorly developed blog and CMS systems being defaced. Many of these problems are attributed to inexperienced users writing what amounts to completely horrible code.
While the developers of PHP itself are very talented and quite respected, the users of PHP are starting to cause problems for the Linux community as a whole. Each time a site is defaced due to some poorly written PHP script, it is often portrayed as a vulnerability with Linux itself. Of course that is more often than not a complete falsity, as the fault does not lie in any way with the Linux kernel or its developers.
So while Linux advocates often promote the use of PHP for developing webapps on Linux, PHP is starting to become more of a liability. Every site running Linux and PHP that gets defaced due to terribly written PHP scripts reflects very poorly on Linux's public image. Now I have to ask: what is the Linux community willing to do about this problem?
Would they even be willing to go so far as to demand that the PHP developers include functionality to severely limit the ability of faulty scripts to run? It's quite difficult to say at this point. But if changes aren't made fairly soon, then things could degrade very quickly.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I am not knocking this book by any means. It is probably very good. But can't any developer who knows a C-ish syntax language pick up PHP basics quickly? I learned it in a day or two just by analogy with C/Perl/etc. How much need/demand is there for entry level books like this?
Where computer books have value to me is when they teach me something that would take hours/days/weeks to learn by trial-and-error. Something non-trivial that can't be guessed from reading the doc. (Like setting up user authentication or something.) That's when I start thinking about spending cash on books which have value by saving me time and especially frustration. (The PHP Cookbook, for example.)
My point wasn't that Perl is the wrong tool for the job. It's just that it isn't always the right tool. That's what this is all about - choosing the right tool for the job.
Having seen horribly written Perl used in the wrong situation, I know that Perl can take longer to develop than PHP to do some things. Maybe it could have been sped up by using CPAN modules, but the entire application could have been built in a matter of days. The Perl version probably took a month to build, based on the sheer amount of code.
PHP isn't going anywhere, just like Perl isn't. ASP/.Net are here to stay. I have complaints about all of the above - but they all have their uses, strengths, weaknesses, and an appropriate time to employ them.
* And after watching the 15 minute demonstration of Ruby on Rails, I'm going to join you in hoping that it isn't the next big thing.
If your existing PHP4 setup is working fine, or at least acceptably, you may not want to transition to PHP5. It has been suggested that PHP 5.0.4 suffers from very poor memory usage.
c id=13297391
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=158685&
So at this point, it just doesn't sound like a transition may be a very good idea for a site that is already functional and running well.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Wait, there is still a programmer that doesn't know PHP?
color me stunned!
-mix
But yet it does explain MySQL? Which is it? I'm not going to buy the book if the reviewer can't figure it out.
In other words, the book isn't centered around building DB-driven apps using PHP+MySQL, even if it does discuss the topic. The reviewer wishes it also had chapters on PHP+PostgreSQL or PHP+Oracle, but it doesn't. Seems pretty reasonable and consistent to me.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Is one of these more advanced than the other? Or does it just look that way to someone that's never seen a ternay operator before?It's a much better plan to justify your existance to your employers by writing rock solid code that can be maintained by others when your l33t skillz get you a better job.
There is also a huge difference between being able to write code in a given language and being able to write GOOD code in that language.
A professional programmer could at any time be tasked
tasked
Must be an MBA.
Overall, this is a pretty good idea for a book, but the editors/author should not have rushed it to press - the quality of the book appears to have suffered.
I would strongly encourage a potential buyer of this book to spend several minutes with the book and see if the style suits your manner of learnig. Personally, I prefer the O'Reilly Learning series approach to teaching a topic, but preferences vary.
Ken
The only book anyone should be using for learning PHP is the PHP manual. We write it for a reason. The manual is the only resource I know of which is almost always up to date, maintained, and largely error free (We have errors, but as soon as they're reported they are fixed, usually within hours of the report being filed. Most of these types of errors involve spelling or gramatical mistakes.). Books released on the subject all do the same thing: re-write what the manual has already adequately stated while throwing in errors left and right.
Arguably, there are a few books written which at first seem to be written well. Hell, who isn't tempted to pick up a book now and again which has names such as "Rasmus" and "Andi" etc stamped across the front in large gaping print. But these books are just as useless as those written by lesser-known authors, and shouldn't be used because of the same failings of other books: They're error-prone, and almost immediately deprecated. PHP changes rapidly, very rapidly. Possibly too rapidly for its own good, but that's another discussion entirely. Point being that you can't commit changes to the cvs repository of a book as you can to the PHP manual, and as such any printed book will fall far short of being as up to date as the PHP manual.
If you need a resource to "teach you PHP quickly" there is generally only one chapter you need to read in its entirety, and that is php.net/langref. Anyone willing to take the time to do that can pick up the (extremely easy and basic) syntax of PHP within 2 to 4 hours. From there all one need do is hit the extension documentation pages of any API they may wish to use, such as php.net/mysql, php.net/pcre, etc.
I can help you change tired moments into pleasure, say the word and we'll be well upon our way...
I second this. I've done PERL BASH, a couple crappy C, yadda yadda. and I was able to pick PHP in an afternoon. Especially with it's similar structure to PERL.
./index.php --purge (this is also in a cron), need to troubleshoot an XML file? run ./index.php --xml to create a new file. Sending off a new feed from the command line? ./index.php --xml --ftp.
I use php for most everything now, especially since php-cli came out. I even write my shell scripts in it now.
A few weeks ago I had to write a site that would allow users to input obituaries (I work in newspapers) and send off an XML feed and any binary images to an FTP server. The cool part is that the SAME script can be run from a command line or a web browser. Need the (l)users to input the obits? give them the website. If they need to send off a feed immediately (say for instance there is a typo on the website) it's a 1 click option for them. The script creates thubnails in png format from jsut about format you can think of. They can upload EPS, PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, or even a PDF, or anything else support by imagemagick
Need to purge the database? run
The users love it because they can edit the obits in real time on the website, removing extra line breaks changing the photo or whatever else they need to do with a live preview.
Time to build it? roughly 4 hours and that includes setting up the PostgreSQL database.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
While I agree that PHP isn't all that great I think you have the reasons wrong.
OO isn't a silver bullet. You almost always trade performance for development time and maintainability when you use it. That's not a bad thing and PHP minimizes the performance hit well enough to make it useful. In PHP its nice when the developer sticks to one or the other, though its obvious that most people don't because PHP is easy and the people writing it tend to be new to programming.
Strong typing isn't a silver bullet either, and I don't see how it makes your code more reliable. PHP tends to die when you perform numeric calculations on a string or vice-versa so problems can be fixed before going to production. I'd prefer it handle more like Perl where usually it does the "right thing" (it doesn't die at the very least).
Here's my problem list that I hoped would be fixed or at least improved in 5. (no such luck it seems)
Error handling is one of my biggest beefs with PHP. There are simply too many options and none of them are sane. Why can't we have a class as an error handler? Why is it that the error messages are spewed the screen as HTML by default? Why doesn't the command line mode revert to text only error messages? Why doesn't PHP just use the server error log like other languages and give you options to change it if you need to? That's what its there for!
References: Worse than PHP 4's objects are its references. Why can't I have references to objects or code? Why can't I pass a reference to any user defined or built-in function? (it used to work for user defined functions then they depricated it)? Seriously why does the function care if it has a reference or a value? To be fair I've heard some of these things have been fixed in 5 but I've still not found definitively if you can have code or object references.
Scoping: I suspect part of the problem with references are due to limitations in scoping. On the surface, having all locally scoped variables and specifying when you want to use a global one makes sense and keeps new programmers out of trouble. The problem is it leads to undefined variables everywhere when the programming forgets to use 'global $foo' in a function. This is also a problem that can be hard to spot initially because PHP doesn't bother to warn you if you've done that. The 'global' keyword also looks like a declaration so when I was first learning the language it was extremely confusing. PHP would be much more tolerable if they adopted something similar to Perl's strict mode where you declare your variable in the global, package, or local scope and it dies when you have variables that are undefined. This method is much better than having silently undefined variables.
Namespace polution: Why are there 14 billion functions I'll never use all in the same scope? Its silly. C came up with the idea of including what you need 35 years ago! Why are we regressing? Even if you don't like having separate namespaces, at the very least functions that go together could all be in a common file to be included and then you only import functions you need. And no OO won't solve this problem because all the core functions are still imported in, even in PHP 5.
Compiled modules: Why do I have to recompile PHP if I want to add image functions or some other module written in C?
HTML Centric: PHP centers around HTML (see my beef about the error messages above) This is a real annoyance if you want to output other things. Also the default embedding in presentation is irritating too. It was a bad idea with ASP, it was a bad idea with ColdFusion and its still a bad idea now and while the developers keep saying "you no longer have to embed it", so what? Make it where it can't be embeded. (yeah yeah, backward compatability and all that) Sure you can cause other languages to print out HTML using print statements, but its not the same. PHP is designed around embedding it within HTML. Print statements make obvious the need for templates. PHP makes a mess without making it obvious un
The Anti-Blog
What I truly *meant* was: so many people out there are writing very basic-looking code, that, while it works, it's not optimal. It's not as efficient as it *could* be, and in my experience, writing more efficient code, especially code that's "hardened" or more secure, takes more advanced programming skills than a lot of the code I see out there. So, learning complex ideas, which you may NOT learn in these "learn ___ quickly" type of books, sometimes only comes from principles you've learned while writing in other languages. "Looking" more advanced, which I admit was poorly written in my original post, doesn't mean purposely obfuscating code for any kind of job security, but sometimes it's more efficient to write it in one way than another.
Take regular expressions for example... you could write 100 lines of PHP code to do strstr() calls in a giant if/elseif/elseif/elseif block to detect a string match in a block of data, or you could do a few lines of an ereg_* or preg_* call in PHP that "new" PHP programmers maybe wouldn't know about. If I didn't know Perl well enough to know regexp's, then I wouldn't have known that an ereg_ or preg_ call in PHP would do the same, and 5 or 6 years ago, *I'd* have been that guy writing 100 lines of strstr() calls to do what a single function could perform. Today, I work at taking someone else's 100 lines of code and reduce it to a much shorter block of more efficient code, using more advanced skills.
And based on conversations I've had with other people, yeah, many people do find Perl a little more difficult to learn with some of its cryptic syntax.
Sorry for the confusion of my previous post, and thanks for the laughs I've had over other people flaming my trigger-happy 'submit' skills.
my geeklog
I'm a huge PHP fan.
But even I'm getting sick of these PHP reviews.
Thanks for the revision, it does help. Using advanced LOOKING code is indeed useless, but there is something to be said for efficient and elegent code that is also sensibly readible. It is indeed what makes the difference between sloppy and supreme coders. Thanks for the clarification, and apologies for being one of the "...people flaming my trigger-happy 'submit' skills."
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
"In Java, I can create objects, store them in sessions, hand them to threads, and store them using persistence frameworks. PHP has only the most rudimentary versions of such features."
Good for you. What are the advantages of doing what you're doing that obsolete PHP in every instance?
Scalability. The ability to share objects and information between threads, so that they can be used throughout an application and not just within a request or session is vital for large high-performance websites. It is simply not practical to drop through to the database to reload information each time when you have hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users.
"so you end up with no separation between HTML and code, and you end up with an unmaintainable mess."But what's to stop this from happening in ANY language? And what's to stop it NOT happening in PHP?
In Java, for example, there are web development frameworks such as Tapestry, Struts and JSF, that have cleanly separated presentation and code layers. As for stopping it in PHP - that is tricky, as PHP was designed for HTML + code mixing.
Please explain more - I don't know what filters are. I'd be very surprised if PHP could not support whatever-they-are.
Filters allow specific ranges of URLs to have additional functionality wrapped around the requests. This is a highly useful feature, allowing things like post-processing of HTML, or checking authorisation (and diverting to error pages).
There may be add-ins for this, but as far as I know, it is not standard for PHP, as it is in Java.
You are obviously speaking without thinking (or just flat out don't know any better) as PHP also includes the bathroom sink just like Perl + CPAN.
FYI, PHP is a serious language. If it weren't so many people/companies wouldn't be using it. (and I mean beyond inexperienced users.. Yahoo for a example...)
btw, I have an intrest in Rudy, my current favorite language to use for admin purposes is Python. Some have claimed that a language cannot speed up the process of development. They have not used Python. I used PHP, bash, and even Perl for those purposes and Python cut the development time in half.
Thats my experience anyway. When I have time, I will sit down with a Rudy book. Also to note there is no documentation like php.net's documentation. I wish they would open source it, or other languages would mimic the PHP website.
PHP isn't a functional language. It's a procedural/imperative language.
Who has proclaimed OOP to be a magic bullet? Less of the straw men, please. I can't remember ever hearing anybody claim anything was a magic bullet seriously.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
"It is simply not practical to drop through to the database to reload information each time when you have hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users."
..
... ? at all.
It is. I've worked on a site (NB: NOT my URL!) that handles greater traffic than that, with a large number of DB requests on a large proportion of pages. NOT written in PHP. But not even running on a box of its own
It is not practical for anything but the simplest and smallest of data items. If it were, sites like E-Bay and high-volume stock markets would work like this. They don't.
If you want a dynamic web site, you have to mix HTML with something at some point. It may be characters in a file, string delimiters, php delimiters, whatever.
Yes, but what you don't want to mix is logic. Someone should not have to look through lines of HTML to see how you are doing a price calculation!
Generally, web frameworks have specialised tags that are included in the middle of HTML to indicate where the results of processing are to be included.
I don't see anything in the PHP language itself any different from any other language in this regard. HTML is just a bunch of strings; PHP can be written with nothing outside of the ?php
You can, but the mere fact you have those enclosing symbols indicates that the language was designed to allow embedding in HTML, and not to discourage it.
"Filters allow specific ranges of URLs to have additional functionality wrapped around the requests. This is a highly useful feature, allowing things like post-processing of HTML, or checking authorisation (and diverting to error pages)."
Forgive me if this sounds flippant, but isn't that something than can be achieved with an array, a regexp or two, and REQUEST_URI?
It can, but why bother re-implementing this each time? Filter APIs allow Filter classes to be written in just a few lines of code.
Is this something actually within the language itself?
No. It is a standard part of the JSP/Servlet API, which is a subset of J2EE.
simpler technique would be more fitting and elegant
This is GOTO, an elegant statement for a more civilized age.
That said, Ruby on Rails is amazing. If java isn't your bag, check it out. It has most of the best features of Java and PHP, almost none of the warts, and a whole bunch of great stuff you won't find anywhere else.
After all your praising of Hibernate, how can you recommend this? Hibernate is an elegant and robust ORM that isolates your code from database specifics and allows you to write highly portable applications. Ruby on Rails requires exactly the kind of embedded SQL you don't like if you are to do anything complex, and makes your application extremely dependent on the database schema and the specific column names contained within it, and has serious barriers to portability.
I agree strongly with almost every aspect of your post, but certainly not this last part!
PHP5 is a memory hog. I realized this after writing a sizeable application in PHP5's new object syntax for our 7-server cluster. Everyone is so busy comparing PHP4 to PHP5 by benchmarking a script that prints "hello world" 5000 times, nobody has noticed the memory usage.
PHP5 DOES runs great if you run it through Zend Platform (an opcode accelerator), which costs $1500 a year per dual-CPU server. There are free alternatives to this (eAccelerator and APC), but none of them optimize the new PHP5 class syntax like Zend, and talk of instability is common. Do some simple memory benchmarks and you will see (just load your classes, you dont even run any code it to see it guzzle memory!!).
For us to run PHP5, it would cost over $15,000 per year, which is more than our servers are worth!
I feel held at ransom by Zend. Small shops like us are left out in the cold. We are abandoning it and switching to mod_perl and Catalyst on CentOS4.
PHP does not feel "free" the way Perl or Apache are. I guess it is Zend's language after all.
Time to fork PHP into the bloated Java-chasing PHP5, and the nimble PHP 4.
:-)
Call the 5 fork PHOOP
Table-ized A.I.