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PHP 5.6.0 Released

Posted by timothy on from the still-hard-to-pronounce dept.

An anonymous reader writes The PHP team has announced the release of PHP 5.6.0. New features include constant scalar expressions, exponentiation using the ** operator, function and constant importing with the use keyword, support for file uploads larger than 2 GB, and phpdbg as an interactive integrated debugger SAPI. The team also notes important changes affecting compatibility. For example: "Array keys won't be overwritten when defining an array as a property of a class via an array literal," json_decode() is now more strict at parsing JSON syntax, and GMP resources are now objects. Here is the migration guide, the full change log, and the downloads page.

72 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

    It does not have to be useful when it has been given a monopoly over the entire industry.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  2. It's powerful, but.. by timrod · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have they come up with another way to calculate the number of days between any given day and Easter yet? I've been waiting for years for a third function to be added to easter_days and easter_date.. a sort of holy trinity, if you will.

    1. Re:It's powerful, but.. by CastrTroy · · Score: 1
      It would be trivial to program your own function to do the same. Pseudocode shown below

      function daysToEaster($aDate) {
      var $nextEaster;

      if(aDate <= easter_date(year($aDate))
      $nextEaster = easter_date(year($aDate));
      else
      $nextEaster = easter_date(year($aDate) + 1);

      return floor($nextEaster - $aDate/(60*60*24));
      }

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:It's powerful, but.. by timrod · · Score: 1

      Nope! I don't code at all, but I had friends who coded pretty heavily in PHP and tried to learn it once. I spent a few hours one day looking at the list of functions included with PHP, and sure enough those two are in the official PHP documentation. To this day, I have no idea why they needed two built-in functions to determine when Easter was, or who it was they were expecting would use them... or why Easter, of all days.

    3. Re:It's powerful, but.. by tendrousbeastie · · Score: 2

      I assume it is an ironic joke.

      Historically calculating the date of Easter was a hugely difficult and complicated task for medieval scholastic monks - one that involved a huge amount of time and controversy.

    4. Re:It's powerful, but.. by pspahn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Can you really not figure it out?

      First off, would it be quite easy for you to tell me off the top of your head what the date of Easter will be in 2021? How about just next year? The date it falls on it fairly complicated and not exactly simple to write an algorithm for.

      Ok, but who will use it? I guess it comes as a surprise that it is a fairly important holiday for religious reasons and that a number of other holidays' dates are intertwined with Easter.

      If you really see no practical application for that, well I guess you're just not trying hard enough.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    5. Re:It's powerful, but.. by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      I actually like coding in PHP. You can create some really nice applications using it. Then again, you can create really nice applications with just about any server side language if you know what you are doing.

      My main beef with PHP is the inconsistency with built-in function names. If you want to replace within a string, you use "str_replace", if you want to split a string into an array, you use "str_split". However, if you want to get part of the string, you use "substr". And if you want to compare two strings, you use "strcmp". If they could get some consistency there, it would vastly improve the language.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    6. Re:It's powerful, but.. by slashdice · · Score: 2

      the point is, they're built-in functions. Not a library or package, but part of the core language. What other language has a function (let alone two functions) to tell you when easter is?

      --
      Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
    7. Re:It's powerful, but.. by Bloke+down+the+pub · · Score: 1

      Maybe because it's a public holiday in some countries. Enterprisey stuff likes to know things like that.

      As to there being two, I understand that the benighted heathens of the Byzantine persuasion calculate it differently to the bead-jigglers in Rome.

      Then again, it's PHP so all bets are off.

      --
      It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
    8. Re:It's powerful, but.. by pspahn · · Score: 1

      Sure, why not part of the core language? Think about it ...

      Out of all the holidays that I'm thinking of off the top of my head, Easter is the one that stands out as being of significant importance as well as being rather awkward to figure when it occurs. If you couple this with the fact that PHP is a web language (an environment where knowing when Easter is can come in rather handy) I think it makes perfect sense.

      I suppose if you're griping because there is no core method `ramadan_date` or `chinese_new_year_date`, then that makes sense.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    9. Re: It's powerful, but.. by master_kaos · · Score: 1

      Omg I am a professional php developer I didn't even know these functions existed, I thought you were joking and had to look it up. Don't think I would ever have a use for them

    10. Re:It's powerful, but.. by hholzgra · · Score: 1

      easter_days() plus fixed offset will get you a given years Ascension Day (easter_days+39, Withsunday (+49) etc.

      strictly speaking easter_date() is indeed redundant as you could as well use easter_days()+0, but its there as convenience function ...

      but as far as I remember the main reason for having both was that the C library the calendar extension relies on has both, too ...

    11. Re:It's powerful, but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why would you expect holidays to be part of the core package to begin with? The idea of that being where it belongs is stupid as hell.

  3. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1, Informative

    But more seriously, though. Most of these new features are straight up things that python already does.

    Const expressions? Since at least 2.0.
    ** syntax since forever.
    integrated debuggers since 2.5ish
    file size restrictions since never?

    I mean... these are really kinda bad things to just now be getting to.

  4. Yes it's easy, with this code: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    you just use the baby_jesus_butthole function

    or was it jesus_baby_butthole? fuck ima need to check the manual

    1. Re:Yes it's easy, with this code: by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's baby_jesus_real_butthole(first_half_of_needle, haystack, last_half_of_needle), duh. But don't blame php for that, that's the name of the function straight from libjesus.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    2. Re:Yes it's easy, with this code: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ahh understood, because without baby_jesus_real_butthole , hit butthole could be prone to SQL injections.

      Sanitize your buttholes.

  5. You can get into trouble for using PHP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Student Suspended Over Suspected Use of PHP

    1. Re:You can get into trouble for using PHP by RiscIt · · Score: 1

      +1 point for linking to the ghost town that is bbspot.

    2. Re:You can get into trouble for using PHP by Jason+Levine · · Score: 2

      For a split second, I was going to voice my outrage over such a thing happening before my brain kicked in and I remembered that BBSpot is a humor website.

      In my defense, though, when a teen can be arrested for writing a story in which he uses a gun to kill his neighbor's pet dinosaur, the humor/satire stories can be hard to separate from the true stories.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    3. Re:You can get into trouble for using PHP by Monkey · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I was surprised to see that the site still exists.

  6. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by wisnoskij · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I know. They have been adding standard default programming language features for years now. The last time I worked with it a year or two ago I was struck by how you could not even `getArray()[3];`, you needed to `$tmp = getArray(); $tmp = $tmp[3];`. It is a potentially decent generic language with some really retarded areas, that does not seem to be out of the beta phase of its development yet.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  7. It's powerful, but.. by slashdice · · Score: 2

    holy shit, I thought you were joking.

    --
    Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
  8. Re:overloading by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    That's not likely in a weakly typed language. Because the only overloads can be number of args.

  9. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

    How has PHP been given a monopoly on the entire industry? There are other languages out there and many of them are used quite a bit. PHP may or may not be the most popular (I honestly have no stats to tell either way), but even if it was vastly more popular than any other web programming language, it would be far from a monopoly.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  10. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    For what it's worth getArray()[3] was working two years ago (it's been working since PHP 5.4)

  11. My only question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Great, what got deprecated? [goes to RTFA]

  12. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by pspahn · · Score: 1

    ... and yet the parent still gets modded up. That should tell you something about relationship between what PHP is perceived as being and what it actually is.

    --
    Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
  13. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by Jmstuckman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    PHP is a horrible programming language, but I know why people like PHP applications -- the ability to install an application on a LAMP stack by just untarring a single archive into the deployment directory is priceless.

    Last time I tried to install a Python web application, I had to give the installer root privileges to install a bunch of junk in some system-wide module directory. No thanks.

    Last time I tried to install a Ruby web application, I ran into a bunch of snafus related to newer versions of Ruby not being backwards compatible with older code, and discovered that the "right" way to do it was to install a whole new package management system that wasn't in sync with my OS's own package manager. No thanks to that, either.

  14. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    There are other similar expressions that are still not working, though. If you read their todo list for the next major release, cleaning up the parser to allow for arbitrary expressions like that is a major work item. Apparently, they don't even have an AST.

  15. Still no Unicode? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    ... but, hey, we've got this major feature: you can now multiply two constants, and the result is also a constant! It's almost like C had in, what, 1985? Except that you don't actually need it because this is a dynamic weakly typed language, but who cares. PHP! PHP!

    1. Re:Still no Unicode? by tepples · · Score: 1

      How are mbstring and iconv not Unicode? Is it just that a byte order mark inserted by Windows Notepad will cause headers to be sent?

    2. Re:Still no Unicode? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      iconv lets you convert things, but what are you going to convert it to? UTF-8? Sure, and how many libraries (including core PHP ones) are UTF-8 aware? Most won't use mbstring, they'll just treat strings as arrays of bytes, and you're really lucky if they don't assume byte = char anywhere.

      Treating strings as 8-bit clean works well in some cases, but fails pathetically in so many others. Yet that is the game that PHP is trying to play.

  16. It's not the knife... by Aethedor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it's the cook that prepares the food. It's not the camera, it's the photographer that shoots the picture. It's not the racing car, it's the driver that wins the race. It's not the programming language, it's the programmer that creates the application.

    All you whiners can bash PHP like you want. But a PHP website will still beat your Perl website if the PHP programmer is better than you. So, unless your coding skills are 100% perfect, you better start looking at your own flaws instead of wasting time at whining about a programming language that simply isn't your pick of choice. Please, it's time to grow up.

    --
    It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    1. Re:It's not the knife... by Ignacio · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "... if the PHP programmer is better than you."

      For every good-to-excellent PHP programmer there is a small army of mediocre-to-bad PHP programmers. You get chefs that deep-fry rubber boots, photographers that can't tell the lens from the viewfinder, and drivers that can't put a car in gear without breaking something.

      But it also doesn't help when the programming language tells them that someone somewhere likes to eat overcooked footwear, or hands them a camera which is a featureless cube with two identical holes on either side, or takes away the gear shift and replaces it with a button labelled "Crash".

    2. Re:It's not the knife... by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      PHP is a very bad knife, and even a good cook can do a better (or easier) work when he have good knifes.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    3. Re:It's not the knife... by Aethedor · · Score: 1

      It's not a bad knife. It's just that *you* think that it's a bad knife. I think it's a fine knife. I'm not saying perfect, but no knife is. I know its good sides, I know its bad sides, which allows me to handle it well. The things I create with it are really up any challenge.

      But tell me, how's your cooking?

      --
      It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    4. Re:It's not the knife... by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      So I "think" that is a bad knife (from my experience using it on a big government system) and you thinks is a good knife[citation needed], so what? Is ony your opinion against mine, and I seriously doubt that your opinion carries more weight than mine only because you want so.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    5. Re:It's not the knife... by Ignacio · · Score: 2

      "Other" people's time? As far as I can tell, the only other person's time I'm wasting is yours. Want to go ballooning this weekend? We don't even need to bring fuel.

    6. Re:It's not the knife... by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Nah, that's part of its charm. PHP is C with dollar signs.... :-)

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    7. Re:It's not the knife... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      it's the cook that prepares the food. It's not the camera, it's the photographer that shoots the picture. It's not the racing car, it's the driver that wins the race. It's not the programming language, it's the programmer that creates the application.

      Yes but a good cook will do better with a good knife, a good photog will be better with a good camera, and a good programmer will perform better with a well designed language.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    8. Re:It's not the knife... by websitebroke · · Score: 2

      You know, I read that article, and I walked away from it thinking the guy just really doesn't understand what exactly a scripting language is for, and how they work. For example, he was so incensed at the === operator, contending that == in PHP is useless. But it's quite useful. If you're testing for "truthy" values such as true, 1, or a character string, you use ==. If you need an actual boolean, use ===.

    9. Re: It's not the knife... by Aethedor · · Score: 1

      You're missing my point. I'm only saying: if you don't like it, don't use it. But don't bug other people with oppinion, because it's irrelevant to the .

      --
      It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    10. Re:It's not the knife... by sithlord2 · · Score: 1

      Sure, but a programming language should not work AGAINST the programmer, and this is exactly what PHP does.

      Take a look at this page, and no, it's not an anti-php rant, but an overview of actual facts about PHP:

      http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/...

      I made a few PHP projects myself, but since I discovered Python and Django Framework, I would never go back to PHP again.

      --
      ...You are over-qualified and under-paid. If we give you a raise, we will break the cosmic balance of the universe.
    11. Re: It's not the knife... by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Is irrevelant only for you. On my organization (and in many others, I can assure you) we care about the many opinions about a programming language when we are deciding which language to use in a given project.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    12. Re:It's not the knife... by Aethedor · · Score: 1

      That's good for you, but it's still an opinion. I don't think that PHP works against the programmer. Talking about Django, I don't like it. I've takens a look at it, but I think it's too much hustle to get a simple website running. I've created my own framework, the Banshee PHP framework. It's fast, secure and easy to use. The websites you can make with Banshee are just as good as the one you can make with Django.

      --
      It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    13. Re: It's not the knife... by Aethedor · · Score: 1

      Choosing a programming language that best suites the needs of your company it totally different from pointless bashing a programming language you don't even use. In that case, those opinions are irrelevant to everybody.

      --
      It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
    14. Re: It's not the knife... by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Sorry, you have problems with text interpretation? I made it clear that I work with the language on a pretty big system.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
  17. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    Yes, and servers do not get updated instantly. Large corporations in particular are always a few years behind, and if you are writing code that will be hosted on a server you do not own yourself it needs to comply to their latest version of PHP, not the bleeding edge of php development.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  18. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    Because that is what main players have adopted. If you are programming your own software, on your own hardware, you could write the entire thing in assembly. If you are programming for your companies servers, or "The Cloud" Good luck with the other alternatives.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  19. Re:Pseudocode by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    It already exists. It's called the VB.Net compiler. I swear that VB was designed to look like pseudocode. I use it at work, and actually find the readability of it quite good.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  20. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    It doesn't have a monopoly as such, but it's very hard to avoid. Many - maybe even most - of the major web apps you're likely to be contracted to change/extend are written in PHP for some reason. There appears to be no mainstream alternative to, say, Wordpress/Drupal/et al that's written in something more solid like Java or C#.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  21. No, PHP is a hammer by benjymouse · · Score: 1

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/...

    --
    Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
  22. 24 CVE fixes in one language system release by mr_mischief · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here are the lines matching for grep -P 'CVE-\d{4}-\d+':

    Fixed bug #67390 (insecure temporary file use in the configure script). (CVE-2014-3981)
    Fixed bug #66060 (Heap buffer over-read in DateInterval). (CVE-2013-6712)
    Fixed bug #67716 (Segfault in cdf.c). (CVE-2014-3587)
    Fixed bug #67705 (extensive backtracking in rule regular expression). (CVE-2014-3538)
    Fixed bug #67327 (fileinfo: CDF infinite loop in nelements DoS). (CVE-2014-0238)
    Fixed bug #67328 (fileinfo: fileinfo: numerous file_printf calls resulting in performance degradation). (CVE-2014-0237)
    Fixed bug #67326 (fileinfo: cdf_read_short_sector insufficient boundary check). (CVE-2014-0207)
    Fixed bug #67410 (fileinfo: mconvert incorrect handling of truncated pascal string size). (CVE-2014-3478)
    Fixed bug #67411 (fileinfo: cdf_check_stream_offset insufficient boundary check). (CVE-2014-3479)
    Fixed bug #67412 (fileinfo: cdf_count_chain insufficient boundary check). (CVE-2014-3480)
    Fixed bug #67413 (fileinfo: cdf_read_property_info insufficient boundary check). (CVE-2014-3487)
    Fixed bug #66731 (file: infinite recursion). (CVE-2014-1943)
    Fixed bug #66820 (out-of-bounds memory access in fileinfo). (CVE-2014-2270)
    Fixed bug #66946 (fileinfo: extensive backtracking in awk rule regular expression). (CVE-2013-7345)
    Fixed bug #67060 (sapi/fpm: possible privilege escalation due to insecure default configuration). (CVE-2014-0185)
    Fixed bug #67730 (Null byte injection possible with imagexxx functions). (CVE-2014-5120)
    Fixed bug #66901 (php-gd 'c_color' NULL pointer dereference). (CVE-2014-2497)
    Fixed bug #66356 (Heap Overflow Vulnerability in imagecrop()). (CVE-2013-7226)
    Fixed bug #66815 (imagecrop(): insufficient fix for NULL defer). (CVE-2013-7327)
    Fixed bug #67717 (segfault in dns_get_record). (CVE-2014-3597)
    Fixed bug #67432 (Fix potential segfault in dns_get_record()). (CVE-2014-4049)
    Fixed bug #67539 (ArrayIterator use-after-free due to object change during sorting). (CVE-2014-4698)
    Fixed bug #67538 (SPL Iterators use-after-free). (CVE-2014-4670)
    Fixed bug #67492 (unserialize() SPL ArrayObject / SPLObjectStorage Type Confusion). (CVE-2014-3515)

    That's not the applications written in PHP, mind you. That's the language system.

    1. Re:24 CVE fixes in one language system release by tepples · · Score: 1

      How many CVE fixes do you get in your typical web browser, or should I say client-side JavaScript language system?

    2. Re:24 CVE fixes in one language system release by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      Exactly. 24 were reported and fixed in just this release cycle.

  23. Re:Same old... by xushi · · Score: 1

    ... until one day someone gets food poisoned and the restaurant shuts down.

  24. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    PHP is a horrible programming language, but I know why people like PHP applications -- the ability to install an application on a LAMP stack by just untarring a single archive into the deployment directory is priceless.

    Last time I tried to install a Python web application, I had to give the installer root privileges to install a bunch of junk in some system-wide module directory. No thanks.

    Last time I tried to install a Ruby web application, I ran into a bunch of snafus related to newer versions of Ruby not being backwards compatible with older code, and discovered that the "right" way to do it was to install a whole new package management system that wasn't in sync with my OS's own package manager. No thanks to that, either.

    Maybe now you finally understand why every year is still the Year of the Windows Desktop?

  25. Outdated PHP in RHEL by tepples · · Score: 1

    it's been working since PHP 5.4

    And guess where Red Hat Enterprise Linux stopped. The only things they backport from new versions are the security fixes.

  26. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by eneville · · Score: 1

    Why didn't you resolve those dependencies as root yourself, the installer presumably shows what it dose when it fails as a non-root, even if it doesn't do this you can work out the name of the required package. It's normal to run a script and find that it uses some library that you don't have already. Ever tried a java web archive? Just plonk that in the tomcat ROOT dir and it installs automatically, you don't even have to run it. That's priceless.

    --
    Why UNIX?
  27. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's because PHP doesn't require anything extra except tuning max_execution_time and the memory limits to make it work for everyone. I'd demand extra money if I had to babysit your rails process and kill it when it consumes a gig of ram on a shared host.

  28. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by narcc · · Score: 1

    This is one of many reasons why PHP wins out over alternatives.

    If you really hate PHP, find a better solution. I'm seeing a lot of talk here about Python and Ruby, but both completely fall flat where PHP excels. Let me know when the catch-up.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  29. PHP making great progress by justin+samuel · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm certainly biased because my company (ServerPilot) sells a service for PHP developers using DigitalOcean and other servers, but it does seem like PHP is making great progress in the past few years both in the language and in terms of a strong developer community. We're very glad to see PHP 5.3 EOL'd recently. To encourage adoption of 5.6, we've already packaged and added support for 5.6.

  30. Re:People still use this shit? by slashdice · · Score: 1

    tweaky, as in toothless meth addict.

    --
    Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
  31. It used to be a spoon. Okay, a blog/CMS by raymorris · · Score: 1

    I code in PHP for my day job. There's almost nothing I can't do in PHP. Millions of people use my PHP code. I also know several other languages, so I have some basis of comparison to say PHP 5.0 kinda sucked as a general purpose programming language, and I can tell you exactly WHY it sucked.

    PHP was originally a blog / CMS script written in Perl. It was designed to be a blog, not language for general programming. In fact, it wasn't even supposed to be used by programmers at all. It was designed for webmasters who didn't know Perl and didn't want to learn. Up through version 4, it's roots were painfully obvious. Lerdorf has said "I know nothing about language design ", and he's right. Fortunately, he hired some people who do have a clue for the 5.4 versions, so it's getting better.

  32. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

    Umbraco, Orchard? Both mainstream, both mature and both a worthwhile replacement for Wordpress et al.

  33. Yeah, impressive list. True. But ... by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    ... consider this:

    How many people and projects use PHP? How many use another PL? How many fixes and updates would be in line for that other PL if it would have the same userbase. ... When did Ruby finally become UTF8 safe again?

    Make it work, then make it beautiful.

    If any PL incorporates this philosophy, it's PHP.
    And AFAICT they're doing pretty well following it, don't you think?

    My 2 cents.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  34. Re:Pseudocode by CastrTroy · · Score: 1
    I don't think that

    MULTIPLY X BY Y GIVING Z

    is any more readable than

    Z = X * Y

    To anybody with sufficient knowledge of math and programming, the second is actually more readable, because it's easier to discern what the values are and where the operators are. Assuming you aren't using simple variable names, but rather more descriptive terms, look at the following.

    MULTIPLY LENGTH BY WIDTH GIVING AREA

    and

    AREA = LENGTH * WIDTH

    In the first option, everything is a word, making it hard for your eyes to pick out exactly what's going on. But in the second one, you know right away that you are dealing with AREA, LENGTH, and WIDTH. You know you are dealing with an assignment looking at the start of the statement, and it's easy to see that you are multiplying.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  35. Re:People still use this shit? by WinterSolstice · · Score: 1

    I see the mods are still not bothering to read the moderation guidelines after all these years.
    I think it's time for some *real* flamebait - /. jumped the shark when Rob left. I think it's time I take the hint and bail myself.

    --
    An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
  36. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by Waccoon · · Score: 1

    Every time I update PHP on my Windows dev box, I have to re-arrange the order of the extensions in the config file to get PHP to start. Apparently, if you use any extensions that aren't enabled in a vanilla install, the default order of the extensions results in dependency issues. The helpful, paraphrased error message I get is something like, "PHP can't load this extension".

    Yes, I know I'm talking about the Windows version, but installing PHP still isn't as simple as just unzipping an archive.

    Then again, I've learned not to trust anything in PHP that is designed to make it portable across OSes. I used to use PHP_EOL to determine which newline style to use in my text files. On more than one occasion, PHP_EOL was broken and produced UN*X newlines.

  37. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    Mainstream? Never heard of either of them.

    Using Slashdot's search feature: Wordpress brings up too many hits to count. Umbraco? Zero. Orchard? Less than one page none of which appear to have any relation to the CMS project.

    So I can reasonably suggest I'm not in a minority here in never hearing about any of them.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  38. Re:Now almost as useful as python was 5 years ago! by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    In fairness Java hasn't really been like that for years. Not that I blame anyone for holding grudges.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.