My thinking here is that, to remain competitive, Mozilla needs to support this feature. To not include that feature would do more harm to the goals of the organization than good.
However this one will. Because Apple supply the standard development environment and language for iOS and OSX development. Which means that this will be shipped to all developers that it's applicable to. By design it's an upgrade over the existing language.
Time will tell if a significant number of iOS and OSX developers take a risk and actually use Swift. After all, It's brand new. No one knows how best to incorporate it into their projects or if doing so with offer them any advantage. No one even knows if Apple will continue to support the language if it doesn't gain significant traction over the next few years. I could easily go on. The point is, there are a lot of factors that developers need to consider beyond "do I have that installed?".
The only way you could think that this doesn't affect iOS and OSX developers is if your own knowledge of programming languages ended at BASIC.
That doesn't make any sense at all. Please, explain how "I" could only come to that conclusion (which you came up with all on your own, btw) if my knowledge of programming languages ended at BASIC?
I haven't heard a good lecture in autodidact logic in a while. I suspect it will be very entertaining.
Interesting qualifier, though I should probably note that Microsoft has been in the programming language game since before they were even called 'Microsoft'.
Most those conversions don't even work in other languages
If you can cast an int to a bool, or float to an int, you prove my point. What you find really difficult here is trying to find a way to ignore a simple obvious fact: The == point is complete nonsense. Give it up. Accept reality. I know it's painful for you.
Where you can cast in other languages in a manner where there's not a direct translation you get data loss.
You can't. That's a big part of the point! This isn't complicated! What, exactly, are you having difficulty understanding here? That you're wrong?
It's not logical, because it evaluates in a manner that goes against all norms
Okay, you're using Dr. Spock's definition of logical. Typical. Are you one of those autodidacts, perhaps? That would explain an awful lot...
But given that's all you could really even begin to try and dispute
That's all I bothered to respond to. You're clearly incapable of being educated.
ou chose to become a wilful liar
Where did I lie? The only lie told here, was by you. I'm still waiting for you to back up that lie with evidence.
You know what I think? I don't think anyone could possibly be this incompetent. You're not a moron, your just a troll.
I give up. You stick your head in the sand and refuse to face reality.
I think you're confusing data loss with transitivity.
No, I'm not. It's VERY obvious that I'm not.
Look, this isn't even a contentious point. Try it for yourself! PHP doesn't behave any differently here than other languages!
It's been explained to you, over and over again. Any idiot with 5 minutes of free time can prove this for themselves!
What can I do, when you write things like this?
It's bad design again. Languages are tools of logic and the results of it are illogical.
It's perfectly logical, as the author of your beloved nonsense article explains!
Then again, this bit tells a different story:
So now I've tried to help you understand the areas of the document you did not perhaps you can also begin to realise why I made the point I did about your lack of formal development experience.
Your claim was that I said that I had little experience with PHP -- which you repeated even after I contradicted you. I asked you for evidence on both occasions, and like the troll you clearly are, you ignored.
I give up. You're clearly just stringing me along here. Enjoy your ignorance.
I'm curious as to which one of my claims you think is extraordinary? What "established fact" am I "railing against"?
Can't answer that one either, eh?
I'm also sitll waiting on proof of your claims about my experience with PHP. You've repeated that one several times without evidence, though I've directly contradicted it.
Still nothing?
Okay, on the operators section. I see you DIDN'T do as I requested and strip out the empty rhetoric ahead of time. Pitiful.
Operators == is useless.
This is the claim. It's obviously not useless as it's essential for dynamic languages. The author starts by immediately showing his ignorance. Still, let's see how he makes his case:
It’s not transitive. "foo" == TRUE, and "foo" == 0 but, of course, TRUE != 0. == converts to numbers when possible (123 == "123foo" although "123" != "123foo"), which means it converts to floats when possible. So large hex strings (like, say, password hashes) may occasionally compare true when they’re not.
Wrong! == is transitive provided you're not mixing types. As I've pointed out, this is EXACTLY like other languages. Go ahead and pull out your favorite language. You'll find that (after doing the casting yourself) that == is not transitive between types in those languages either!
You really want to deny this, but it's an obvious fact. Worse, you can easily do an experiment yourself that proves my point! You either refuse to, or you have and know the results. Either way, continuing to deny something this simple and obvious says an awful lot about you...
For the same reason, "6" == " 6", "4.2" == "4.20", and "133" == "0133". But note that 133 != 0133, because 0133 is octal. But "0x10" == "16" and "1e3" == "1000"!
This one is a bit debatable. It could be a bug, or intentional behavior as it is often desirable to ignore leading zeros when converting a string to a number. In either case, it's well-documented.
So, is it better that leading zeros are ignored or not? It's a good question. On one hand, we want the consistency, on the other, octal values are so rarely used that it's likely to cause more problems for beginners and experienced users than the inconsistency.
Oh, wait. You didn't even know that the point he was making was that octal strings are treated like decimal strings when converted to a number did you? (Judging from his "point" below, neither does he! Oh, shameless ignorance!)
=== compares values and type except with objects, where === is only true if both operands are actually the same object!
Just like Java. What did he expect? If it behaved differently, he might have a reason to complain!
For objects, == compares both value (of every attribute) and type, which is what === does for every other type. What.
Oh, he's just a moron. Sorry, is the author just confused about what objects are and what the purpose of == is? Because the only one confused here seems to be him!
Comparison isn’t much better. It’s not even consistent: NULL < -1, and NULL == 0. Sorting is thus nondeterministic; it depends on the order in which the sort algorithm happens to compare elements.
Total fail. The claim here is that Sorting is nondeterministic. This is laughably false (as he unwittingly admits after the semi-colon!). Maybe he just doesn't know what that term means? You'll also note the type conversion which, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he missed. It seems dynamic languages confuse him quite a bit.
The comparison operators try to sort arrays, two different ways: first by length, then by elements. If they have the same number of elements but different sets of keys, though, they are uncomparable.
(Ignoring the "try to sort arrays" bit. Let's pretend that this was an honest mistake.) It'
Let's see... So far, all you've done is attack my character, with false claims you repeat yet refuse to substantiate, ignore all the evidence placed in front of you, and continue to repeat the same empty rhetoric.
Sorry, pal. Reality disagrees with you.
So, are you ready to take me up on my offer? Pick a section of the fractal article you think is particularly good and I'll walk you through it.
Yeah, I didn't think so. Your unfounded beliefs probably can't stand up to that much reality. (I suspect that this is why you haven't taken me up on the offer. You tried to find a good section and failed. You now know it's crap. You're just too insecure to admit that you were completely wrong about it.)
You'll find that many languages, not just dynamic languages, have comparison rules that are not transitive -- C included -- when you make comparisons between different types.
To which you replied:
Not only C has transitive relationship operators, but the language specification actually states that value comparison operators must be transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
Yet you still cling to your laughably incompetent earlier claim:
PHP is the only, and i mean only language i found with comparison rules that are non-transitive.
You're clinging to your silly beliefs in light of evidence to the contrary. It's madness.
Really? Because it looks like she agreed with me completely.
You'll find that many languages, not just dynamic languages, have comparison rules that are not transitive -- C included -- when you make comparisons between different types.
To which she replied:
Not only C has transitive relationship operators, but the language specification actually states that value comparison operators must be transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
In contrast to her earlier claim:
PHP is the only, and i mean only language i found with comparison rules that are non-transitive.
I can't believe that, in the face of evidence to the contrary, you're holding on to your absurd beliefs.
Not only C has transitive relationship operators,
Just like PHP!
value comparison operators must be transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
Just like PHP, where comparison operators are transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
The difference, of course, is that no one says C's operators aren't transitive even though they behave like PHP's operators once differences in types are taken in to account.
Now, if had even a minimal understanding of dynamic typing, you wouldn't say such absurd things.
Look, this is a simple point-of-fact. You can do the experiment yourself, quickly and easily. The results are irrefutable. You've been parroting nonsense. You'll get over it.
You'll find that many languages, not just dynamic languages, have comparison rules that are not transitive -- C included -- when you make comparisons between different types.
Perhaps you should spend less time parroting nonsense you hear on the internet and a bit more time evaluating your beliefs.
It's not an argument. It's speculation as to why it's often compared to C.
Don't blame me, you asked for exactly that!
Re:If PHP was a horse in the prog language race
on
PHP Next Generation
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· Score: 1
You're still parroting the same old thing whilst evading backing it up by explaining where exactly it is wrong.
It would be easier to point on the bits it gets right! As I've said before, just about everywhere. You have a link which points out a few problems with the article, but refuse to accept reality.
If it's that important to you, pick a section of the article and I'll help you evaluate it. You clearly need the extra hand-holding.
Of course you'll need to know the difference between fact an opinion. From the nonsense article:
PHP does not overload +. + is always addition, and . is always concatenation.
Need some help? While it is a fact that + is not overloaded and . is always used for concatenation, that this is a bad design choice is purely opinion. I don't mind opinion so much, as this is a subjective sort of thing, but unsubstantiated opinion is worthless. Why does he think this is a problem? I'll never know. "It's bad design 'cause I don't like it!" isn't very convincing.
Now that that's out of the way. Before you post the section you want to discuss, save us both some trouble by first stripping out any empty rhetoric (like the analogy section) and any unsubstantiated opinion. What's left should be points of fact and arguments. We can tackle those individually.
Once you have some experience making an objective evaluation, you can tackle the rest of that ridiculous article. I suspect that you'll stop quickly, once you realize that it's not likely to improve.
That doesn't make any sense. How can real world stuff be useless? By definition real world stuff is stuff that's used in the real world, and hence, not useless.
Not a big thinker, are you? Useless, as in "offers no practical benefit". I'll take it a step further and say that most "real-world" development trends are worse than useless. Offering not only no practical benefit, but are actually harmful.
Can't read the documentation, eh? Object and anything, object is always greater. Array and anything, array is always greater. Object has precedence.
Think: How would you compare a double to an array anyway? How would you do it in other languages? What would the results be, provided you did the appropriate type conversions?
This stuff isn't complicated.
Re:If PHP was a horse in the prog language race
on
PHP Next Generation
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· Score: 1
You can knock-off your silly attempt to discredit me, accusing me of posting as an AC to support my own post. No one is buying it. It's also not relevant to the topic at all.
You've written a book here. Why does it bother you so much that people like something that you don't like?
The problem is you've made it clear before you haven't even used PHP much
That must have been in your imagination. I've never said anything that would imply that.
So why not create your own page to summarise your arguments like the guy who wrote the fractal article did? Then you can just link to it.
I'd like to point out that you did, in fact, link to an article that addresses (some) of the shortcomings of the fractal article. There's even a discussion below which includes the fractal author. You ignored the facts there, what possible hope do I have?
I'm sorry that reality does not conform to your preconceptions. That's not my fault.
I see three types of PHP developers here:
I'm sure you've done the relevant research prior to drawing that conclusion, right? Oh...
I get the impression you're very academically oriented, rather than real-world development oriented.
I honestly don't see anything wrong with that. I'll also note that most (if not all) of the "real-world" development stuff you run across is worse than useless -- the technical equivalent of self-help books. You'd think the guys in the trenches would notice, with the never-ending parade of fads competing for their attention, and start to demand actual research to inform them.
The problem with this "feelings" based approach that's become so popular is that it doesn't actually inform you. You don't like PHP. Rather than try to work out why, you do a google search for "PHP sucks" or whatever and try to find reasons to validate your feelings. When you run across an article like the fractal article, which is absolutely abysmal, you feel like you've hit on something akin to real research. It's not. (You'll find many of his facts are flat-out wrong, and the bulk of the article is completely unsubstantiated opinion.) Even worse, it actively discourages you from using your critical thinking skills to make an objective evaluation.
I've not found anyone who works with it to any reasonable degree, who has worked with other technologies to allow them to compare, and who actually likes it.
Check this very thread. Hell, check this post.
If what you say is true, that it's actually fine, then where are all the high end professionals (i.e. not just amateurs and people at the junior level) that use it and actually like it?
Check this thread. If that doesn't satisfy you, consider that PHP powers >80% of websites (a link for you) not just small sites, but also major sites like Yahoo and Wikipedia. You don't get that kind of marketshare by being a virtually unusable mess, like some folks here seem to believe. You get that kind of marketshare by being better suited to the task than competing languages.
I don't think you'll need to look too far to find "high end professionals" (I wonder what your criteria for that would be?) that actually like it. You've got an awfully big pool of users to draw from.
As you're practically minded, why not ask yourself how PHP became so popular? Why has it continued to grow year-after-year in the face of increasing competition and decreasing reputation on sites like Slashdot? How do the alternatives compare to it in practical terms?
Granted, very awful things can also become quite popular, though you can usually find a good reason for it. That's something exploring questions like the above can help discover.
I see. You're just confused by dynamic languages. Try the same operations in C, with the relevant casts, and note the results. Hey, look at that! Not quite so "nonsensical" now, is it?
Like I said, give that article a good fact-check. You'll regret ever recommending it.
Slashdot Mirror
My thinking here is that, to remain competitive, Mozilla needs to support this feature. To not include that feature would do more harm to the goals of the organization than good.
Like I said, time will tell.
I find this bit a bit surprising:
They will realise that this is a significant improvement over Obj-C in many ways, and so will be adopted.
It seems a bit early for anyone to hold such a strong opinion. What about Swift did you find so compelling?
However this one will. Because Apple supply the standard development environment and language for iOS and OSX development. Which means that this will
be shipped to all developers that it's applicable to. By design it's an upgrade over the existing language.
Time will tell if a significant number of iOS and OSX developers take a risk and actually use Swift. After all, It's brand new. No one knows how best to incorporate it into their projects or if doing so with offer them any advantage. No one even knows if Apple will continue to support the language if it doesn't gain significant traction over the next few years. I could easily go on. The point is, there are a lot of factors that developers need to consider beyond "do I have that installed?".
The only way you could think that this doesn't affect iOS and OSX developers is if your own knowledge of programming languages ended at BASIC.
That doesn't make any sense at all. Please, explain how "I" could only come to that conclusion (which you came up with all on your own, btw) if my knowledge of programming languages ended at BASIC?
I haven't heard a good lecture in autodidact logic in a while. I suspect it will be very entertaining.
Was that really necessary?
You're free to disagree with me. That is, if you actually believe that new languages are bound to gain a lot of traction.
You can leave the personal insults at the door.
Interesting qualifier, though I should probably note that Microsoft has been in the programming language game since before they were even called 'Microsoft'.
Or as little.
It's consumer technology. The rule has always been "follow the leader."
Most those conversions don't even work in other languages
If you can cast an int to a bool, or float to an int, you prove my point. What you find really difficult here is trying to find a way to ignore a simple obvious fact: The == point is complete nonsense. Give it up. Accept reality. I know it's painful for you.
Where you can cast in other languages in a manner where there's not a direct translation you get data loss.
You can't. That's a big part of the point! This isn't complicated! What, exactly, are you having difficulty understanding here? That you're wrong?
It's not logical, because it evaluates in a manner that goes against all norms
Okay, you're using Dr. Spock's definition of logical. Typical. Are you one of those autodidacts, perhaps? That would explain an awful lot...
But given that's all you could really even begin to try and dispute
That's all I bothered to respond to. You're clearly incapable of being educated.
ou chose to become a wilful liar
Where did I lie? The only lie told here, was by you. I'm still waiting for you to back up that lie with evidence.
You know what I think? I don't think anyone could possibly be this incompetent. You're not a moron, your just a troll.
I give up. You stick your head in the sand and refuse to face reality.
I think you're confusing data loss with transitivity.
No, I'm not. It's VERY obvious that I'm not.
Look, this isn't even a contentious point. Try it for yourself! PHP doesn't behave any differently here than other languages!
It's been explained to you, over and over again. Any idiot with 5 minutes of free time can prove this for themselves!
What can I do, when you write things like this?
It's bad design again. Languages are tools of logic and the results of it are illogical.
It's perfectly logical, as the author of your beloved nonsense article explains!
Then again, this bit tells a different story:
So now I've tried to help you understand the areas of the document you did not perhaps you can also begin to realise why I made the point I did about your lack of formal development experience.
Your claim was that I said that I had little experience with PHP -- which you repeated even after I contradicted you. I asked you for evidence on both occasions, and like the troll you clearly are, you ignored.
I give up. You're clearly just stringing me along here. Enjoy your ignorance.
I'm curious as to which one of my claims you think is extraordinary? What "established fact" am I "railing against"?
Can't answer that one either, eh?
I'm also sitll waiting on proof of your claims about my experience with PHP. You've repeated that one several times without evidence, though I've directly contradicted it.
Still nothing?
Okay, on the operators section. I see you DIDN'T do as I requested and strip out the empty rhetoric ahead of time. Pitiful.
Operators
== is useless.
This is the claim. It's obviously not useless as it's essential for dynamic languages. The author starts by immediately showing his ignorance. Still, let's see how he makes his case:
It’s not transitive. "foo" == TRUE, and "foo" == 0 but, of course, TRUE != 0.
== converts to numbers when possible (123 == "123foo" although "123" != "123foo"), which means it converts to floats when possible. So large hex strings (like, say, password hashes) may occasionally compare true when they’re not.
Wrong! == is transitive provided you're not mixing types. As I've pointed out, this is EXACTLY like other languages. Go ahead and pull out your favorite language. You'll find that (after doing the casting yourself) that == is not transitive between types in those languages either!
You really want to deny this, but it's an obvious fact. Worse, you can easily do an experiment yourself that proves my point! You either refuse to, or you have and know the results. Either way, continuing to deny something this simple and obvious says an awful lot about you...
For the same reason, "6" == " 6", "4.2" == "4.20", and "133" == "0133". But note that 133 != 0133, because 0133 is octal. But "0x10" == "16" and "1e3" == "1000"!
This one is a bit debatable. It could be a bug, or intentional behavior as it is often desirable to ignore leading zeros when converting a string to a number. In either case, it's well-documented.
So, is it better that leading zeros are ignored or not? It's a good question. On one hand, we want the consistency, on the other, octal values are so rarely used that it's likely to cause more problems for beginners and experienced users than the inconsistency.
Oh, wait. You didn't even know that the point he was making was that octal strings are treated like decimal strings when converted to a number did you? (Judging from his "point" below, neither does he! Oh, shameless ignorance!)
=== compares values and type except with objects, where === is only true if both operands are actually the same object!
Just like Java. What did he expect? If it behaved differently, he might have a reason to complain!
For objects, == compares both value (of every attribute) and type, which is what === does for every other type. What.
Oh, he's just a moron. Sorry, is the author just confused about what objects are and what the purpose of == is? Because the only one confused here seems to be him!
Comparison isn’t much better. It’s not even consistent: NULL < -1, and NULL == 0. Sorting is thus nondeterministic; it depends on the order in which the sort algorithm happens to compare elements.
Total fail. The claim here is that Sorting is nondeterministic. This is laughably false (as he unwittingly admits after the semi-colon!). Maybe he just doesn't know what that term means? You'll also note the type conversion which, giving him the benefit of the doubt, he missed. It seems dynamic languages confuse him quite a bit.
The comparison operators try to sort arrays, two different ways: first by length, then by elements. If they have the same number of elements but different sets of keys, though, they are uncomparable.
(Ignoring the "try to sort arrays" bit. Let's pretend that this was an honest mistake.) It'
Let's see... So far, all you've done is attack my character, with false claims you repeat yet refuse to substantiate, ignore all the evidence placed in front of you, and continue to repeat the same empty rhetoric.
Sorry, pal. Reality disagrees with you.
So, are you ready to take me up on my offer? Pick a section of the fractal article you think is particularly good and I'll walk you through it.
Yeah, I didn't think so. Your unfounded beliefs probably can't stand up to that much reality. (I suspect that this is why you haven't taken me up on the offer. You tried to find a good section and failed. You now know it's crap. You're just too insecure to admit that you were completely wrong about it.)
Evidence? You seem to have trouble providing that for your nonsense claims.
Go ahead, post a link. I'll wait.
Funny, you seem to agree with me completely.
You'll find that many languages, not just dynamic languages, have comparison rules that are not transitive -- C included -- when you make comparisons between different types.
To which you replied:
Not only C has transitive relationship operators, but the language specification actually states that value comparison operators must be transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
Yet you still cling to your laughably incompetent earlier claim:
PHP is the only, and i mean only language i found with comparison rules that are non-transitive.
You're clinging to your silly beliefs in light of evidence to the contrary. It's madness.
He's openly admitted previously he has little or no experience using PHP though
Evidence? I've said nothing of the sort.
Then again, it's pretty clear that you're not interesting in facts or reality.
I love how you can only attack my character with made-up nonsense, it implies that you have no actual argument.
Really? Because it looks like she agreed with me completely.
You'll find that many languages, not just dynamic languages, have comparison rules that are not transitive -- C included -- when you make comparisons between different types.
To which she replied:
Not only C has transitive relationship operators, but the language specification actually states that value comparison operators must be transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
In contrast to her earlier claim:
PHP is the only, and i mean only language i found with comparison rules that are non-transitive.
How does that make me wrong again?
Yeah. I'm dying to know what the "loss of precision" is when comparing a float to an array to an object.
Gee, I wonder. Converting a non-numeric type to a number... Hmmm...
Are you really this thick?
Deny reality all you want. Just do the world a favor and stop spouting nonsense.
I can't believe that, in the face of evidence to the contrary, you're holding on to your absurd beliefs.
Not only C has transitive relationship operators,
Just like PHP!
value comparison operators must be transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
Just like PHP, where comparison operators are transitive except in cases where precision is lost in type-casting of operands.
The difference, of course, is that no one says C's operators aren't transitive even though they behave like PHP's operators once differences in types are taken in to account.
Now, if had even a minimal understanding of dynamic typing, you wouldn't say such absurd things.
Look, this is a simple point-of-fact. You can do the experiment yourself, quickly and easily. The results are irrefutable. You've been parroting nonsense. You'll get over it.
That's flat-out wrong!
You'll find that many languages, not just dynamic languages, have comparison rules that are not transitive -- C included -- when you make comparisons between different types.
Perhaps you should spend less time parroting nonsense you hear on the internet and a bit more time evaluating your beliefs.
It's not an argument. It's speculation as to why it's often compared to C.
Don't blame me, you asked for exactly that!
You're still parroting the same old thing whilst evading backing it up by explaining where exactly it is wrong.
It would be easier to point on the bits it gets right! As I've said before, just about everywhere. You have a link which points out a few problems with the article, but refuse to accept reality.
If it's that important to you, pick a section of the article and I'll help you evaluate it. You clearly need the extra hand-holding.
Of course you'll need to know the difference between fact an opinion. From the nonsense article:
PHP does not overload +. + is always addition, and . is always concatenation.
Need some help?
While it is a fact that + is not overloaded and . is always used for concatenation, that this is a bad design choice is purely opinion. I don't mind opinion so much, as this is a subjective sort of thing, but unsubstantiated opinion is worthless. Why does he think this is a problem? I'll never know. "It's bad design 'cause I don't like it!" isn't very convincing.
Now that that's out of the way. Before you post the section you want to discuss, save us both some trouble by first stripping out any empty rhetoric (like the analogy section) and any unsubstantiated opinion. What's left should be points of fact and arguments. We can tackle those individually.
Once you have some experience making an objective evaluation, you can tackle the rest of that ridiculous article. I suspect that you'll stop quickly, once you realize that it's not likely to improve.
That doesn't make any sense. How can real world stuff be useless? By definition real world stuff is stuff that's used in the real world, and hence, not useless.
Not a big thinker, are you? Useless, as in "offers no practical benefit". I'll take it a step further and say that most "real-world" development trends are worse than useless. Offering not only no practical benefit, but are actually harmful.
Oh, and by the way. Why do people insists on comparing PHP to C?
Because it's a language that others are likely to already understand. PHP is also written in C, which likely influenced the language.
Can't read the documentation, eh? Object and anything, object is always greater. Array and anything, array is always greater. Object has precedence.
Think: How would you compare a double to an array anyway? How would you do it in other languages? What would the results be, provided you did the appropriate type conversions?
This stuff isn't complicated.
You can knock-off your silly attempt to discredit me, accusing me of posting as an AC to support my own post. No one is buying it. It's also not relevant to the topic at all.
You've written a book here. Why does it bother you so much that people like something that you don't like?
The problem is you've made it clear before you haven't even used PHP much
That must have been in your imagination. I've never said anything that would imply that.
So why not create your own page to summarise your arguments like the guy who wrote the fractal article did? Then you can just link to it.
I'd like to point out that you did, in fact, link to an article that addresses (some) of the shortcomings of the fractal article. There's even a discussion below which includes the fractal author. You ignored the facts there, what possible hope do I have?
I'm sorry that reality does not conform to your preconceptions. That's not my fault.
I see three types of PHP developers here:
I'm sure you've done the relevant research prior to drawing that conclusion, right? Oh...
I get the impression you're very academically oriented, rather than real-world development oriented.
I honestly don't see anything wrong with that. I'll also note that most (if not all) of the "real-world" development stuff you run across is worse than useless -- the technical equivalent of self-help books. You'd think the guys in the trenches would notice, with the never-ending parade of fads competing for their attention, and start to demand actual research to inform them.
The problem with this "feelings" based approach that's become so popular is that it doesn't actually inform you. You don't like PHP. Rather than try to work out why, you do a google search for "PHP sucks" or whatever and try to find reasons to validate your feelings. When you run across an article like the fractal article, which is absolutely abysmal, you feel like you've hit on something akin to real research. It's not. (You'll find many of his facts are flat-out wrong, and the bulk of the article is completely unsubstantiated opinion.) Even worse, it actively discourages you from using your critical thinking skills to make an objective evaluation.
I've not found anyone who works with it to any reasonable degree, who has worked with other technologies to allow them to compare, and who actually likes it.
Check this very thread. Hell, check this post.
If what you say is true, that it's actually fine, then where are all the high end professionals (i.e. not just amateurs and people at the junior level) that use it and actually like it?
Check this thread. If that doesn't satisfy you, consider that PHP powers >80% of websites (a link for you) not just small sites, but also major sites like Yahoo and Wikipedia. You don't get that kind of marketshare by being a virtually unusable mess, like some folks here seem to believe. You get that kind of marketshare by being better suited to the task than competing languages.
I don't think you'll need to look too far to find "high end professionals" (I wonder what your criteria for that would be?) that actually like it. You've got an awfully big pool of users to draw from.
As you're practically minded, why not ask yourself how PHP became so popular? Why has it continued to grow year-after-year in the face of increasing competition and decreasing reputation on sites like Slashdot? How do the alternatives compare to it in practical terms?
Granted, very awful things can also become quite popular, though you can usually find a good reason for it. That's something exploring questions like the above can help discover.
The nonsensical comparison operator results
I see. You're just confused by dynamic languages. Try the same operations in C, with the relevant casts, and note the results. Hey, look at that! Not quite so "nonsensical" now, is it?
Like I said, give that article a good fact-check. You'll regret ever recommending it.
A shame you've never given it a good fact-check. That site is just short of being complete nonsense.