PHP: an eye-opening article
I just found this article about PHP on Paul Scrivens’ Forever Geek. I think it has scared me off of using PHP forever.
All the negative gut feelings I had about PHP (without even really taking a look at the language) have been proven resoundingly correct by this article, in a well-written, point-by-point explanation.
The conclusion is that PHP is a good language for quick-and-dirty web app development by inexperienced programmers. But as soon as you try to develop anything approaching larger-scale, all the things that were meant to make the language simple, ironically end up making your life enormously complicated.
I guess I’ll be sticking with Java.
March 9th, 2004 at 2:33 am
Interesting article. I’ve always heard programming languages like PHP and ColdFusion are not very good for developing large, scalable sites, but I never knew the exact reasons for it.
March 9th, 2004 at 3:01 am
Hey Jennifer,
Congrats on the new log!
With respect to PHP, rather than dismiss it, perhaps think of it as a tool that fills a certain need. It’s not the only language you’ll ever need, but it sure does what it does well.
Once you understand it and it’s limitations, you can use it and apply it where you see it is advantageous.
Of course, this all assuming that you have the time to pick up >1 language, but as they say, 1 a year, no? (and who has that kind of time!)
March 9th, 2004 at 1:44 pm
I’ve been working on a medium-size-ish project in PHP for about a month now. What a crap language. At least up to verion 4, it doesn’t allow for overriding methods in true OO fashion. It does have a few nice features, but the limitations are ugly.
But, anyway… One reason PHP is so popular is that it’s available for free from practically every web hosting provider, whereas it’s a lot more expensive to find Java-based hosting.
March 9th, 2004 at 1:47 pm
Hi Mike - I know I probably shouldn’t dismiss PHP outright. I’m sure part of it is resistance to leave my comfort zone of Java. But some of the points made in the article would probably annoy me if I was using the language. I’m sure the equals comparator, combined with the automatic type conversion, could cause a lot of headaches with hard-to-find bugs. I guess I prefer a language that makes it hard to get things wrong - strong typing, namespace support, etc.
My “language” this year was CSS, I think. Maybe PHP will be next year.
March 9th, 2004 at 1:59 pm
Hey Travis - nice choice for favorite classical piece - I love the Lacrymosa.
Yeah, the widespread availability of PHP on hosting providers is a distinct advantage. Have you heard of mycgiserver? They’re a free Java host, but you have to “contribute” various amounts of money to get the more advanced features like WAR deployment, EJBs, or even DNS support.