PHP won because it was really easy to deploy and really easy to use. Far easier than Perl. That's why there are so many "shitty" PHP developers and so much awful PHP code out there -- there's virtually no barrier to entry. For some inexplicable reason, people take this to mean that the language sucks.
Insecure developers HATE anything and everything that's easy to use. It threatens their jobs, and their egos.
Re:If PHP was a horse in the prog language race
on
PHP Next Generation
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· Score: 1
The AC is not me. Nice troll attempt, through.
In the past, I've commented on various parts of the fractal article. I'm sorry you missed them. it may have saved you a long pointless rant.
It's a huge rant, and I'm not going to go through it line-by-line on a forum post. It would be a waste of time as I'm sure you'd simply find one debatable point and use that to dismiss the entire thing. That's how such things on slashdot always go.
That's why I invite you to fact-check the article yourself. You can hunt down my criticisms if you want, but it's much easier for you to put those critical thinking skills to work and evaluate the article on objective terms. You'll find that the bulk of it is unsubstantiated opinion, and many of the "facts" are just flat-out wrong.
Re:If PHP was a horse in the prog language race
on
PHP Next Generation
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· Score: 1
Oh, the article I mentioned in the post to which you replied?
I guess you didn't bother read the next sentence before posting. I said before, I gave it fact-check it. Can you guess the results?
It is, bar none, THE WORST LANGUAGE I have ever used.
I take it you haven't used many languages. It's far from the worst. Ever use Python? Blech!
the humungous amount of copy-paste code that PHP requires
What? You should probably elaborate here, as no "copy-paste code" is required.
I've had the misery of suffering with maintaining a few PHP applications over the years.
Ah, I see. You think the language sucks because your only exposure to it is a messy code-base you inherited. Can you direct me to the magical language that does not allow developers to produce a nasty mess that's difficult to maintain?
Re:If PHP was a horse in the prog language race
on
PHP Next Generation
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Still waiting for at least a half-decent argument that it "sucks". (I've seen the fractal article, and then I fact-checked it. Guess what I think about it now?) It seems uniquely well suited to its niche, and more than capable. More than 80% of websites seem to agree. You don't get that kind of market penetration by being "virtually unusable" like the Slashdot hive-mind seems to believe.
Who knows, maybe it does "suck" -- it just happens to suck significantly less than all the alternatives.
You're talking about Python, right? It may be a lot of things, but consistent isn't one of them.
From difficult to scale to easy to scale.
Again, Python? Also, I wasn't aware that PHP was "difficult to scale". No one else seems to have trouble with it. Well, "double-digit percentage of total internet traffic" sites excepted, of course. Though at that point, just about everything is "difficult to scale".
From crappy web frameworks to excellent web frameworks
I've never seen a "web framework" I'd classify as "good", let alone "excellent".
I'm still floored by the Python recommendation. This is a language that couldn't even get a simple print function right until version 3. A language so fundamentally flawed that the syntax can't adequately handle its features (anonymous functions, for example). A language known for abysmal performance. A language that can't even maintain compatibility between minor versions.
You want people to invest in that? That's just crazy.
All you do is detect that the device is hooked into a keyboard dock and show the running tasks bar at all times.
The obvious problem with that, of course, is that iOS apps aren't designed to handle any change in size. A permanent task bar, then, would unhelpfully cover up some part of the app you want to use.
Where's the evidence that the GoF misunderstood Alexander?
I see that you didn't read the book you recommended. Color me surprised.
You have to start somewhere, and the GoF book is an excellent start point.
Where's the evidence? Oh, that's right. There isn't any.
They promised "re-usable" and delivered
Funny, where you see "reusable" I see "forced in inappropriately". Pattern abuse is rampant. I've yet to see a real-life example of a GoF pattern used appropriately, nor have I found a problem to which a GoF pattern is an appropriate solution. I have, on the other hand, seen GoF patterns introduce significant and unnecessary complexity on many occasions.
I'd offer some research to back my experience, but it doesn't exist. Of course, you won't care as neither the GoF nor anyone else has done research to validate the claims they made in that abomination of a book. Facts clearly aren't that important to you.
I'm sorry that you bought that snake-oil. It's going to hurt a lot when reality sets in.
everal people have recommended the Gang of Four book because.. it's a perfect fucking book for software engineers.
It's a terrible book that has caused more harm than good.
Further, how do you suppose it's useful for software "engineers" when the book has extremely limited applicability? (It's not language agnostic. A point even the authors admit.) What about the lack of research behind their "discovery" of those "patterns"? Let's face it -- it's nothing more than another programming self-help book that happened to catch-on.
To start, it's poorly written. Give the code a once over, it's a mess. Or just check c.l.j., it's been discussed to death there. This should come as no surprise as Resig isn't exactly competent. (Give a quick fact-check to any of his JS books and you'll see what I mean.)
It's also incredibly slow. You're encouraged to do absurd things -- like chaining, which makes code significantly less readable -- to help compensate for jQuery's long-standing performance problems.
It's also useless. It was never a drop-in solution to cross-browser issues (it's even worse now) and is even guilty of introducing its own cross-browser issues (compounding the problem it pretended to solve!). To make matters worse, it offers BAD solutions to common problems (see the discussion around even delegation for an easy example) when the vanilla JS equivalent is not only better, but just as simple.
It doesn't hold still. Newer versions are often incompatible with old code. (To mitigate this, they offer "helpful" tools to allow you to run multiple versions of jQuery on the same page. That's bad for everyone.)
That doesn't even scratch the surface, of course, but there's more than enough here for the trolls to start a pointless argument defending their bad decision to use jQuery.
Nice non-argument. The truth, of course, is that prototypes are simpler and more "powerful". You can try to argue against that, but you'll fail miserably.
If you don't like the google search, please, provide something that makes the opposite case. You'll find it impossible.
Why couldn't we have gotten a real object oriented language with real classes
Because sometimes we win. You'll have a hard time finding anyone who will advocate classes over prototypes. Just google "classes vs prototypes" and you'll find more than enough to convince you.
Stop trying to treat javascript like it's Java and and actually learn the language. You'll quickly discover that javascript doesn't suck.
Yeah. New, constructor functions, and now classes. Thankfully, the language is otherwise well designed and flexible enough that you can avoid those warts.
Of course, every language has a lot of faults. What would you consider to be a better replacement?
Slashdot Mirror
How is that a problem?
Why do think we have programming languages, if not to make writing programs easier?
If a language makes writing code easier, that's a good thing. That's the entire point of using a high-level language.
No. it came first
Because no one used Perl, right? Oh, wait...
PHP won because it was really easy to deploy and really easy to use. Far easier than Perl. That's why there are so many "shitty" PHP developers and so much awful PHP code out there -- there's virtually no barrier to entry. For some inexplicable reason, people take this to mean that the language sucks.
Insecure developers HATE anything and everything that's easy to use. It threatens their jobs, and their egos.
The AC is not me. Nice troll attempt, through.
In the past, I've commented on various parts of the fractal article. I'm sorry you missed them. it may have saved you a long pointless rant.
It's a huge rant, and I'm not going to go through it line-by-line on a forum post. It would be a waste of time as I'm sure you'd simply find one debatable point and use that to dismiss the entire thing. That's how such things on slashdot always go.
That's why I invite you to fact-check the article yourself. You can hunt down my criticisms if you want, but it's much easier for you to put those critical thinking skills to work and evaluate the article on objective terms. You'll find that the bulk of it is unsubstantiated opinion, and many of the "facts" are just flat-out wrong.
Oh, the article I mentioned in the post to which you replied?
I guess you didn't bother read the next sentence before posting. I said before, I gave it fact-check it. Can you guess the results?
It is, bar none, THE WORST LANGUAGE I have ever used.
I take it you haven't used many languages. It's far from the worst. Ever use Python? Blech!
the humungous amount of copy-paste code that PHP requires
What? You should probably elaborate here, as no "copy-paste code" is required.
I've had the misery of suffering with maintaining a few PHP applications over the years.
Ah, I see. You think the language sucks because your only exposure to it is a messy code-base you inherited. Can you direct me to the magical language that does not allow developers to produce a nasty mess that's difficult to maintain?
Still waiting for at least a half-decent argument that it "sucks". (I've seen the fractal article, and then I fact-checked it. Guess what I think about it now?) It seems uniquely well suited to its niche, and more than capable. More than 80% of websites seem to agree. You don't get that kind of market penetration by being "virtually unusable" like the Slashdot hive-mind seems to believe.
Who knows, maybe it does "suck" -- it just happens to suck significantly less than all the alternatives.
From inconsistent to consistent
You're talking about Python, right? It may be a lot of things, but consistent isn't one of them.
From difficult to scale to easy to scale.
Again, Python? Also, I wasn't aware that PHP was "difficult to scale". No one else seems to have trouble with it. Well, "double-digit percentage of total internet traffic" sites excepted, of course. Though at that point, just about everything is "difficult to scale".
From crappy web frameworks to excellent web frameworks
I've never seen a "web framework" I'd classify as "good", let alone "excellent".
I'm still floored by the Python recommendation. This is a language that couldn't even get a simple print function right until version 3. A language so fundamentally flawed that the syntax can't adequately handle its features (anonymous functions, for example). A language known for abysmal performance. A language that can't even maintain compatibility between minor versions.
You want people to invest in that? That's just crazy.
That's just because he couldn't get less funny.
All you do is detect that the device is hooked into a keyboard dock and show the running tasks bar at all times.
The obvious problem with that, of course, is that iOS apps aren't designed to handle any change in size. A permanent task bar, then, would unhelpfully cover up some part of the app you want to use.
FFS, please do send it back, or give it to someone who WILL DO SOMETHING USEFUL WITH IT.
Has this happened yet? Has anyone done something useful with it?
Is such a thing even possible?
Someone please write something to do this,
You don't need a program to do this. It would likely take less time to do by hand.
it wouldn't be too hard in python.
Do I need to call the ASPCA?
And that's how we ended up with COBOL.
Which has proven itself over and over again. It's stable, reliable, and easy to maintain. COBOL runs the world, for good reasons.
Where's the evidence that the GoF misunderstood Alexander?
I see that you didn't read the book you recommended. Color me surprised.
You have to start somewhere, and the GoF book is an excellent start point.
Where's the evidence? Oh, that's right. There isn't any.
They promised "re-usable" and delivered
Funny, where you see "reusable" I see "forced in inappropriately". Pattern abuse is rampant. I've yet to see a real-life example of a GoF pattern used appropriately, nor have I found a problem to which a GoF pattern is an appropriate solution. I have, on the other hand, seen GoF patterns introduce significant and unnecessary complexity on many occasions.
I'd offer some research to back my experience, but it doesn't exist. Of course, you won't care as neither the GoF nor anyone else has done research to validate the claims they made in that abomination of a book. Facts clearly aren't that important to you.
I'm sorry that you bought that snake-oil. It's going to hurt a lot when reality sets in.
everal people have recommended the Gang of Four book because.. it's a perfect fucking book for software engineers.
It's a terrible book that has caused more harm than good.
Further, how do you suppose it's useful for software "engineers" when the book has extremely limited applicability? (It's not language agnostic. A point even the authors admit.) What about the lack of research behind their "discovery" of those "patterns"? Let's face it -- it's nothing more than another programming self-help book that happened to catch-on.
A Pattern Language
Ah, the book from which the GoF borrowed their title, and completely misunderstood.
Good luck with that. Depending on the state or country you're in, it may be illegal to title yourself "engineer".
Is it worth the risk just so you can continue to pretend that "software engineering" is an actual discipline?
Here, here.
Know who writes bad code? Everybody.
Nothing is more instructive than a review of your own old work.
Yuck. GoF crap. Even the title contains nonsense "Reusable Object-Oriented Software" What a joke!
I'll second C2, and offer an additional recommendation: dig deep.
Can we stop using the term "engineer"? It's not only meaningless, it does a serious disservice to actual engineers.
I can't recommend reading it. That would be unethical.
However, it is useful for leveling furniture and is an excellent source of kindling. So I guess it's not all bad.
To start, it's poorly written. Give the code a once over, it's a mess. Or just check c.l.j., it's been discussed to death there. This should come as no surprise as Resig isn't exactly competent. (Give a quick fact-check to any of his JS books and you'll see what I mean.)
It's also incredibly slow. You're encouraged to do absurd things -- like chaining, which makes code significantly less readable -- to help compensate for jQuery's long-standing performance problems.
It's also useless. It was never a drop-in solution to cross-browser issues (it's even worse now) and is even guilty of introducing its own cross-browser issues (compounding the problem it pretended to solve!). To make matters worse, it offers BAD solutions to common problems (see the discussion around even delegation for an easy example) when the vanilla JS equivalent is not only better, but just as simple.
It doesn't hold still. Newer versions are often incompatible with old code. (To mitigate this, they offer "helpful" tools to allow you to run multiple versions of jQuery on the same page. That's bad for everyone.)
That doesn't even scratch the surface, of course, but there's more than enough here for the trolls to start a pointless argument defending their bad decision to use jQuery.
Nice non-argument. The truth, of course, is that prototypes are simpler and more "powerful". You can try to argue against that, but you'll fail miserably.
If you don't like the google search, please, provide something that makes the opposite case. You'll find it impossible.
Why couldn't we have gotten a real object oriented language with real classes
Because sometimes we win. You'll have a hard time finding anyone who will advocate classes over prototypes. Just google "classes vs prototypes" and you'll find more than enough to convince you.
Stop trying to treat javascript like it's Java and and actually learn the language. You'll quickly discover that javascript doesn't suck.
JavaScript has a lot of faults.
Yeah. New, constructor functions, and now classes. Thankfully, the language is otherwise well designed and flexible enough that you can avoid those warts.
Of course, every language has a lot of faults. What would you consider to be a better replacement?
Creative Computing, Volume 4, Issue 3 (1978)
It starts on page 132. Mod to your heart's content.