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PHP 5.1.0 Released
kv9 writes "A new release of PHP5 is available. This version includes over 400 bugfixes, performance improvements over the 5.0.x branch, new date handling code, new versions of PCRE/SQLite/PEAR and over 30 new core/extension functions. A number of security fixes are also present and users are recommended to upgrade."
MySQL support has been droped in favor of using simple flat text files. The performance increase from this has been HUGE and the feature set is the same.
Rails still isn't a language, it's a framework.
(calling Ruby a "toy language" when comparing it to PHP is hillarous though, thanks for the laugh)
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
You don't have any classes named Date, do you? It's an extremely uncommon name. Good thing we have namespaces.
http://news.php.net/php.internals/20352
I was under the impression that when using a x.y.z -versioning scheme, bug fixes should be released with increments of z, new features with increments of y, unless they break compatibility, when x should be increased. But when has even PHP done some something in a standard way.
"(...)and over 30 new core/extension functions."
Ugh. Adding still to the inconsistent, namespace mess, PHP functions have? Worst. Decision. Ever.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Zend refuses to add basic features such as a basic accelerator ( PHP scripts get recompiled on every request ). In fact, there was a rumor that Zend bought and killed http://sourceforge.net/projects/turck-mmcache/, the best accelerator out there because it competed with their commercial product.
I understand that money has to be made for development to continue, but that's no way to compete.
PHP server needs true session and application scope variables. File-based session variables it has right now means that any variable that's not serializable ( eg. file descriptor ) can not be saved in the session scope. This is a huge problem. It results in developers making countless round trips to their database to serialize data, and hence making PHP scripts more dependant on close/performant database in general. There was an mmap based solution being worked on, but haven't heard much about it lately.
Other web environments have had these features for years.
I'm guessing that that sought of restriction on the PHP server will continue until an alternative server is developed and begins to gain popularity.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
I use to use PHP a lot day to day for several years (lamp), and found it kicked the ass of ASP for doing really fast web apps. Bigger web applications however, is where its mechanics started to erode - specically includes and the old module level variables issue.
.net and seems to be stuck between a scripting language and a fully fledged OO language.
PHP 5 brought more OO features but it's still loosely typed and not compiled, meaning its OO features pale in comparison to JSP and ASP.NET. Until these two features are added by default (yes I know there are compilers), I can't really see how people will want to make use of its OO features in a business scenario. It handles strings (atleast in 4) about 50x slower than
Nothing costs nothing
If you want cutting edge, then you'll most likely need to run your own server.
Serious hosting companies just can't risk running software that hasn't been widely tested. While there may be benefits from running the new versions of PHP, for instance, it could be a disaster if a security flaw leads to their servers being compromised. An incident like that could financially destroy a small- or medium-sized hosting company. At least the older versions of PHP have undergone more testing than the newer releases.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
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h pp
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16
It's true that PHP suffers from various naming conventions, but namespaces might me the answer.
For PHP 6.0, does anyone know if the core developers are thinking of moving most builtin libraries into namespaces? For instance:
. . . http://ca.php.net/manual/en/function.oci-commit.p
could be placed in the "builtin\oci" namespace and
. . . http://ca.php.net/manual/en/function.ocicommit.ph
could be placed in the "builtin\legacy\oci" namespace.
You could quickly convert all PHP5 to PHP6 simply by adding the line:
. . . import builtin\*;
to the top of every file to make all builtin functions global (the way they are in PHP5).
Apps written in PHP5 would still work without the import, but they'd get a warning (which could be switches off in the php.ini).
- IBM has spiffed up Cloudscape to be somewhat compatible to DB2, renamed it to Derby and is giving it away
- Oracle is giving away a mildly crippled version of its DB, I don't remember the exact circumstances
- ADABAS, also known as SAP DB, is now also FOSS
- Firebird, née Interbase, was freed years ago and is said to be working well and under active development. I don't know why so few people seem to like it.
- I believe I heard about SQL Server being "free" under some circumstances too, but I'm not sure.
So... many thanks to MySQL for being a forerunner in the "free DB" department, and more thanks to other, formerly proprietary-only vendors for making their products a little more accessible to the common man!When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Design and programming are two distinct disciplines. Some brilliant developers are good at both, but many people, myself included, get too much satisfaction from diving into coding to thoroughly think about what they are embarking on. The result is a program/system/language/whatever that starts with a clean small core but grows ever bigger and uglier as changes are bolted on. I tried PHP a couple years back and was disgusted by it. There's a reason why computer language design is a discipline of an academic subject, Computer Science: A wealth of knowledge has accumulated on how to do this kind of thing "right," and applying that knowledge will usually lead to a better end result.
Specifically, my beef with PHP summarizes down to: It makes simple things simple in a way that encourages sloppy coding. PHP is to the current would-be Web geek generation what BASIC was to teenage would-be hotshot coders in the late '80s: A way to achieve "gee whiz!" effects easily and cheaply. It's possible to write large, elegant programs in PHP, but that's not what usually happens.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
... still having no namespaces and lacking in full-blown OOP and all.
So what?
PHP is the web generations basic. No more. But no less either.
Given that loads of very usefull webapps out there are built in PHP
I'd say the criticisim is mostly inadequate whining. If PHP doesn't
cut it for your job, take something else. No big deal.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca