Current version seems to be the exception. But historically, php has been a fantastic prototyping language. You can do things very quickly in php when you get fluent in it. The adhoc nature of the thing makes it great for developing one offs.
That's changing though. The new version feels like it's a lot more formal than older ones.
And of course it would be just incompatible enough with the real PHP so as to cause lots of fucky little problems that would be practically impossible to track down. But thankfully they don't seem to be interested in it at this time- they're too busy fucking up Skype to bother with something like PHP. Maybe when they're done ruining Skype they'll have time to make a proprietary, retarded version of PHP.
Wait, you mean like, Microsoft is going to develop HHVM?
Now, to be fair, I'm not entirely self taught anymore... if I ever was.
I've spent the better part of a decade and a half taking formal classes and working with mentors. I've even gone out of my way to work at companies where famous and semi-famous programmers work, in an effort to meet them and suck the wisdom out of their brains with a straw. By the way, if you're interested, that doesn't usually go over well. But most of the time, they're gracious enough to answer your questions.
Can't stress how important it is to find mentors in this trade. The old crazy gray haired guys that have done things like contributing to the unix kernel, or invented on-demand tv, or the internet.
You can probably get there on your own, but mentors will challenge and annoy you. If you're not challenged and annoyed, you're not learning anything at all.
Hard to say what would happen today. I've found that in order to survive in the industry, you have to be somewhere on the spectrum between formal scientist and snake oil salesman. If you're comfortable enough in your own skin, and you're arrogant enough to try in the first place... I think it could still be done. The best route there, in case there are any young programmers reading would be to shoot for nonprofits and small consulting outfits. The work sucks, the hours are long, management is usually dishonest, and it's totally without appreciation. But those are jobs that look good on a resume, that there isn't usually much competition for.
Truth be told though, the line between formally educated and self taught gets very blurry the further you go.
Well, you have now. Pleasure to meet you. I've been doing this since 1996, straight out of high-school, and I haven't stopped. I did actually spend three semesters in community college as an English major, but I dropped out when the.com boom hit me to work for a forward thinking consulting startup. The rest, as they say is history. I now posses master level proficiency in 25 programming languages, and I'm writing a book on language theory, and hotel rooms, and hookers. It's going to be a good read. Anyway, never did get around to finishing that degree.
He's absolutely right... if you're talking about production floor, practical, every day professional programming skills. But it's fair to note that the majority of self taught programmers do take formal programming courses through the course of their careers, especially if they move from full stack to specializing. As you get older, you end up doing so much formal course work and ongoing education that the line between self taught and formally educated gets very blurry.
But I digress.
The problem with statements like this is that we as programmers assume that everyone who learns how to code is going to want to do it professionally. My first language was BASIC on the Vic 20 in 1987. We learned how to write loops, draw vector graphics on the screen, save code to a tape drive, and read bar codes by sight. I was in elementary school with 35 other New York City yeshiva kids, who I happen to know the majority of which are not programmers today.
For me, it was the logical basis of what has become an extremely gratifying, and often enjoyable career.
But even if it didn't work out that way, I would still think of the class as beneficial. Coding teaches you to walk through problems step by step. It's a skill that's absolutely invaluable in life, and it does go against the grain of what most people consider natural thinking.
It doesn't really matter if you're trying to teach people to be production engineers or not. The skill is incredibly valuable to have. Even if you completely forget the grammars.
Oh, look, it's a Millennial/Hipster pretending to be an "old guy".
Only Millennials/Hipsters use the term "hater".
And only Millennials/Hipsters are stupid enough to consider solid technical arguments pointing out severe flaws in a given piece of technology to be "hate".
Dude, what's with all the hate, man? You can talk about your "severe flaws" all you like, brother, but here, on Slashdot... we love you, man.
I thought most of the PHP haters were Microsoft Visual Studio guys. I wonder. Do the evangelists still roam the internet trash talking any language not approved by the big M?
Or did that go the way of the dodo when Microsoft decided to make hell freeze over by releasing Visual Studio for Linux?
I must admit, the hate boards have been rather quiet for the last year or two.
I started working in php when version 3 came out. I feel like I've really grown as a programmer since then, and I've done my best to stay on top of the new features and practices in subsequent versions of php.
Reviewing the new features for php 7, I have to say that I'm excited about the strong typing features, especially. HHVM was appealing because they got there earlier, but it's nice to see the main branch of php getting to a place where everybody agrees that statically typed code is a good idea.
I may not feel this way in a few months. But for now, I'm on cloud 9.
On a more serious note, I don't see Israel as any kind of good guy here. The fact that their opponents are, by comparison, monstrous, doesn't excuse what's going on.
I will also say that you bring up one big thing that is entirely missing- because Arabic is not a common language outside of the middle east, most Americans have no goddamned idea what's going on. Buddhists and Islamists melt together in one pool of "oppressed peoples" that is generally understood only by reflex. Some random powerless hick in Alabama says something insensitive about black folks and that's national news, some soldier of a terrorist regime promises literal genocide and then slaughters people, that's just whatever and you see it linked to on some blog.
The arabic stuff is pretty heavy. They'll say things more openly when they think Westerners aren't watching. I've been following it for years.
Dude, I'm not going to fault you for that, man. I'm not asking for unconditional support of Israel.
But I do wonder why the West fixates on Israel the way they do. It's not like there would be world peace tomorrow if they solved this one. There are some serious problems with human rights happening all over Africa, Persia, the Far East. Ten actual genocides with shrinking (rather than growing populations) going on today that people couldn't care less about. Not to mention over a dozen military occupations around the world, some of which are longer running and more severe than the one in Israel. Honor Killings, Gender Apartheid, Slavery. These are real problems that cover almost half the planet, but none of them are issues in Israel. And ironically, many of the perpetrators of those crimes are on the UN human rights council. It's absolutely mind blowing.
Great comment Geoff. The thing to remember here is that yes, they are asking for special review powers. And there's good reason to be skeptical there. But, they aren't asking Youtube to remove anything that's not already in violation of their community standards (I think they us community standards at yt, not sure).
And historically, Israel does have a pretty good track record here. The domestic newspapers routinely post anti-government material, op-eds that would make you blush, and they even allow Parliament members who have actually been guilty of treason (MK Zoabi) to serve, and say whatever they like on the floor of the Knesset. Granted, they don't have absolute freedom of speech -- but we don't have that in America anymore either.
Not saying they can do no wrong. Just that I don't think this would affect anyone who's not recruiting for a terrorist organization like Hamas or Daesh. If you are recruiting for a known terrorist organization, well... I suppose that's your business. You've got bigger problems at that point than what's on Youtube.
Israel is not trying to censor speech. They're trying to stop incitement.
Maybe their soldiers should stop executing people in the streets if they don't want videos of their soldiers executing people in the streets to be on the internet. That would be, like, the fastest way to avoid any more of those videos being posted.
Soldiers in the streets, Israeli tactics right or wrong. Neither of those are the topic of the OP. Why not TRFA before bothering me with this nonsense?
Okay, so going to assume you want terrorists to disseminate training, propaganda, and ethnically motivated hate speech material so that they can gleefully murder more civilians.
How many other terror groups outside of Palestine do you wholeheartedly support in this way? Are you a fan of Daesh/ISIS? Do you think El-Shabab are nice guys? How about Boko Haram? All of them have similar grievances with the West, Jews, and Post Enlightenment society in general. Should they also be allowed to spread recruiting and training material in public forums?
I don't know why those mean old Jews won't leave the Pakistanis alone. I mean, Pakistan is like 2500 miles away, man. You would think they would want to solve problems closer to home. You know, like Alaska.
I usually have faith in the posters on Slashdot, but not on this issue. I think it's going to be easy to see that the American educational system has failed us in profound and meaningful ways.
I hope I'm wrong, but I think you're more likely to see a lot of pent up ignorant self involved anger on this topic, than any attempts at an honest, serious discussion of any actual issues related to Israel.
In the threads above, the readers can't even tell the difference between what is meant by incitement, and what is considered speech. They keep tacking on things that really make me wonder if they have any understanding of the subject at all. It's a very simple distinction.
I think nearly everyone that's commented on this so far has either missed the point, gone off the deep end, or strayed way off topic.
Israel is not trying to censor speech. They're trying to stop incitement. In other words, they're trying to stop predominantly arabic language terrorist recruiting and training material.
If you have a rudimentary grasp of Arabic, I highly recommend searching for recruiting and training material put out by groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, even Daesh. Though, in truth, if you did, you would probably get flagged by homeland security in whatever country you're in. In that pile there are some real classics like How to Make a Pipe Bomb, Optimal Use of a Suicide Vest, and (my favorite) How to Stab a Jew. These videos are already in violation of Youtube terms of service on at least three counts I can think of.
Nobody is going to take down your stupid "fuck israel" video, and seriously, nobody even wants to. Unless you're a senior member of Hamas, your opinions simply don't matter to anyone who has any kind of sway in the government.
Honestly man, if you value your job, don't rock this boat. If the management group thought that it needed to be upgraded, it would be. You can be assured of that. Proposing it yourself cannot possibly end well for you.
Even if it goes well, better than expected, and it's not a huge undertaking, you're still going to have a lot of resentment on your team from people who simply don't want to do it. When and if management ever forces them to do it, it's going to be your fault, especially if the changes are radical. Your fault means loss of good will on the team, or with managers.
The caveat to that being that you're best friends with the CEO or CTO, and you can do essentially anything you want. Short of that... don't rock this boat.
Seriously. In a year, when someone else gets this idea, and manages to get the changes through... you'll thank me.
Slashdot Mirror
I was just getting ready to blog about that.
Current version seems to be the exception.
But historically, php has been a fantastic prototyping language.
You can do things very quickly in php when you get fluent in it. The adhoc nature of the thing makes it great for developing one offs.
That's changing though.
The new version feels like it's a lot more formal than older ones.
I may be wrong.
Give me a week, I'll tell ya.
Is that still the case since Microsoft released Visual Studio for Linux?
Fair assessment.
At least you're not being mean about it.
And of course it would be just incompatible enough with the real PHP so as to cause lots of fucky little problems that would be practically impossible to track down. But thankfully they don't seem to be interested in it at this time- they're too busy fucking up Skype to bother with something like PHP. Maybe when they're done ruining Skype they'll have time to make a proprietary, retarded version of PHP.
Wait, you mean like, Microsoft is going to develop HHVM?
Red and black binary trees are fucking awesome!
Now, to be fair, I'm not entirely self taught anymore... if I ever was.
I've spent the better part of a decade and a half taking formal classes and working with mentors. I've even gone out of my way to work at companies where famous and semi-famous programmers work, in an effort to meet them and suck the wisdom out of their brains with a straw. By the way, if you're interested, that doesn't usually go over well. But most of the time, they're gracious enough to answer your questions.
Can't stress how important it is to find mentors in this trade.
The old crazy gray haired guys that have done things like contributing to the unix kernel, or invented on-demand tv, or the internet.
You can probably get there on your own, but mentors will challenge and annoy you.
If you're not challenged and annoyed, you're not learning anything at all.
Why do we all insist on learning things for professional gain, rather than for fun?
Hard to say what would happen today. I've found that in order to survive in the industry, you have to be somewhere on the spectrum between formal scientist and snake oil salesman. If you're comfortable enough in your own skin, and you're arrogant enough to try in the first place... I think it could still be done. The best route there, in case there are any young programmers reading would be to shoot for nonprofits and small consulting outfits. The work sucks, the hours are long, management is usually dishonest, and it's totally without appreciation. But those are jobs that look good on a resume, that there isn't usually much competition for.
Truth be told though, the line between formally educated and self taught gets very blurry the further you go.
Well, you have now. Pleasure to meet you. I've been doing this since 1996, straight out of high-school, and I haven't stopped. I did actually spend three semesters in community college as an English major, but I dropped out when the .com boom hit me to work for a forward thinking consulting startup. The rest, as they say is history. I now posses master level proficiency in 25 programming languages, and I'm writing a book on language theory, and hotel rooms, and hookers. It's going to be a good read. Anyway, never did get around to finishing that degree.
He's absolutely right... if you're talking about production floor, practical, every day professional programming skills. But it's fair to note that the majority of self taught programmers do take formal programming courses through the course of their careers, especially if they move from full stack to specializing. As you get older, you end up doing so much formal course work and ongoing education that the line between self taught and formally educated gets very blurry.
But I digress.
The problem with statements like this is that we as programmers assume that everyone who learns how to code is going to want to do it professionally. My first language was BASIC on the Vic 20 in 1987. We learned how to write loops, draw vector graphics on the screen, save code to a tape drive, and read bar codes by sight. I was in elementary school with 35 other New York City yeshiva kids, who I happen to know the majority of which are not programmers today.
For me, it was the logical basis of what has become an extremely gratifying, and often enjoyable career.
But even if it didn't work out that way, I would still think of the class as beneficial.
Coding teaches you to walk through problems step by step. It's a skill that's absolutely invaluable in life, and it does go against the grain of what most people consider natural thinking.
It doesn't really matter if you're trying to teach people to be production engineers or not.
The skill is incredibly valuable to have. Even if you completely forget the grammars.
Oh, look, it's a Millennial/Hipster pretending to be an "old guy".
Only Millennials/Hipsters use the term "hater".
And only Millennials/Hipsters are stupid enough to consider solid technical arguments pointing out severe flaws in a given piece of technology to be "hate".
Dude, what's with all the hate, man?
You can talk about your "severe flaws" all you like, brother, but here, on Slashdot... we love you, man.
How about a hug?
I thought most of the PHP haters were Microsoft Visual Studio guys.
I wonder. Do the evangelists still roam the internet trash talking any language not approved by the big M?
Or did that go the way of the dodo when Microsoft decided to make hell freeze over by releasing Visual Studio for Linux?
I must admit, the hate boards have been rather quiet for the last year or two.
I'm too good for Erlang. I only code in Golang, Rust, and other languages nobody uses.
I started working in php when version 3 came out.
I feel like I've really grown as a programmer since then, and I've done my best to stay on top of the new features and practices in subsequent versions of php.
Reviewing the new features for php 7, I have to say that I'm excited about the strong typing features, especially. HHVM was appealing because they got there earlier, but it's nice to see the main branch of php getting to a place where everybody agrees that statically typed code is a good idea.
I may not feel this way in a few months.
But for now, I'm on cloud 9.
On a more serious note, I don't see Israel as any kind of good guy here. The fact that their opponents are, by comparison, monstrous, doesn't excuse what's going on.
I will also say that you bring up one big thing that is entirely missing- because Arabic is not a common language outside of the middle east, most Americans have no goddamned idea what's going on. Buddhists and Islamists melt together in one pool of "oppressed peoples" that is generally understood only by reflex. Some random powerless hick in Alabama says something insensitive about black folks and that's national news, some soldier of a terrorist regime promises literal genocide and then slaughters people, that's just whatever and you see it linked to on some blog.
The arabic stuff is pretty heavy.
They'll say things more openly when they think Westerners aren't watching.
I've been following it for years.
Dude, I'm not going to fault you for that, man. I'm not asking for unconditional support of Israel.
But I do wonder why the West fixates on Israel the way they do. It's not like there would be world peace tomorrow if they solved this one. There are some serious problems with human rights happening all over Africa, Persia, the Far East. Ten actual genocides with shrinking (rather than growing populations) going on today that people couldn't care less about. Not to mention over a dozen military occupations around the world, some of which are longer running and more severe than the one in Israel. Honor Killings, Gender Apartheid, Slavery. These are real problems that cover almost half the planet, but none of them are issues in Israel. And ironically, many of the perpetrators of those crimes are on the UN human rights council. It's absolutely mind blowing.
Great comment Geoff.
The thing to remember here is that yes, they are asking for special review powers. And there's good reason to be skeptical there.
But, they aren't asking Youtube to remove anything that's not already in violation of their community standards (I think they us community standards at yt, not sure).
And historically, Israel does have a pretty good track record here. The domestic newspapers routinely post anti-government material, op-eds that would make you blush, and they even allow Parliament members who have actually been guilty of treason (MK Zoabi) to serve, and say whatever they like on the floor of the Knesset. Granted, they don't have absolute freedom of speech -- but we don't have that in America anymore either.
Not saying they can do no wrong. Just that I don't think this would affect anyone who's not recruiting for a terrorist organization like Hamas or Daesh. If you are recruiting for a known terrorist organization, well... I suppose that's your business. You've got bigger problems at that point than what's on Youtube.
Israel is not trying to censor speech. They're trying to stop incitement.
Maybe their soldiers should stop executing people in the streets if they don't want videos of their soldiers executing people in the streets to be on the internet. That would be, like, the fastest way to avoid any more of those videos being posted.
Soldiers in the streets, Israeli tactics right or wrong. Neither of those are the topic of the OP. Why not TRFA before bothering me with this nonsense?
Okay, so going to assume you want terrorists to disseminate training, propaganda, and ethnically motivated hate speech material so that they can gleefully murder more civilians.
How many other terror groups outside of Palestine do you wholeheartedly support in this way? Are you a fan of Daesh/ISIS? Do you think El-Shabab are nice guys? How about Boko Haram? All of them have similar grievances with the West, Jews, and Post Enlightenment society in general. Should they also be allowed to spread recruiting and training material in public forums?
You sure you've thought this through?
Wise words.
I don't know why those mean old Jews won't leave the Pakistanis alone.
I mean, Pakistan is like 2500 miles away, man. You would think they would want to solve problems closer to home.
You know, like Alaska.
I usually have faith in the posters on Slashdot, but not on this issue. I think it's going to be easy to see that the American educational system has failed us in profound and meaningful ways.
I hope I'm wrong, but I think you're more likely to see a lot of pent up ignorant self involved anger on this topic, than any attempts at an honest, serious discussion of any actual issues related to Israel.
In the threads above, the readers can't even tell the difference between what is meant by incitement, and what is considered speech. They keep tacking on things that really make me wonder if they have any understanding of the subject at all. It's a very simple distinction.
I think nearly everyone that's commented on this so far has either missed the point, gone off the deep end, or strayed way off topic.
Israel is not trying to censor speech. They're trying to stop incitement.
In other words, they're trying to stop predominantly arabic language terrorist recruiting and training material.
If you have a rudimentary grasp of Arabic, I highly recommend searching for recruiting and training material put out by groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, even Daesh. Though, in truth, if you did, you would probably get flagged by homeland security in whatever country you're in. In that pile there are some real classics like How to Make a Pipe Bomb, Optimal Use of a Suicide Vest, and (my favorite) How to Stab a Jew. These videos are already in violation of Youtube terms of service on at least three counts I can think of.
Nobody is going to take down your stupid "fuck israel" video, and seriously, nobody even wants to.
Unless you're a senior member of Hamas, your opinions simply don't matter to anyone who has any kind of sway in the government.
For copyright infringement
Recursive copyright infringement, no less.
Honestly man, if you value your job, don't rock this boat.
If the management group thought that it needed to be upgraded, it would be. You can be assured of that.
Proposing it yourself cannot possibly end well for you.
Even if it goes well, better than expected, and it's not a huge undertaking, you're still going to have a lot of resentment on your team from people who simply don't want to do it. When and if management ever forces them to do it, it's going to be your fault, especially if the changes are radical. Your fault means loss of good will on the team, or with managers.
The caveat to that being that you're best friends with the CEO or CTO, and you can do essentially anything you want.
Short of that... don't rock this boat.
Seriously.
In a year, when someone else gets this idea, and manages to get the changes through... you'll thank me.
I was just in Nashville. Honestly some of the worst traffic I've ever seen. Especially around Brentwood.
Or Kansas City. It sucks.
Seriously. Stay at home.