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276 points chei0aiV | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.952s | source
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n0us ◴[] No.10458463[source]
I really could do without "considered harmful" titles. x86 has been one of the most influential technologies of all time and a clickbait title doesn't do it justice imo.
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wyager ◴[] No.10458692[source]
So were PHP and goto statements.

How influential something is has nothing to do with how good it is.

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jrcii ◴[] No.10459089[source]
The PHP bashing on this site is untenable. PHP has no intrinsic properties which stop a good programmer from writing elegant code for web applications. It's a tired discussion, I know, but the most you can say is that it's frequently abused. The oft cited "Spectacle of bad design" essay has been credibly rebutted point-by-point by other authors.
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1. nickpsecurity ◴[] No.10461205[source]
Actually, if you start with good measurements, many clear reasons appear that PHP is a terrible language. A nice write-up is here:

http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

It's amazing how much has been done in what was essentially a pile of hacks on top of a pre-processor making it pretend to be an application language. That pro's avoid it and its wiser users almost always leave it eventually further corroborates the author that it's fundamentally bad. If anything, it's one option among better ones (Python, Ruby) for non-programmers to get started in web apps. Little reason to use it at this point with all the 3rd party components and communities around better languages.

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2. ◴[] No.10462133[source]
3. jrcii ◴[] No.10469376[source]
I don't think it's a nice write up, in fact it arguably miscalculates every point it makes. It's exactly the article I was referring to in my original comment as having been thoroughly refuted, in (correct) anticipation that someone would bring it up, since it seems to be the only go-to source for PHP bashers.
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4. nickpsecurity ◴[] No.10473334[source]
That's a troll comment if I've ever seen one with even less information than what was in the linked article. Your comment actually has no information: a mere dismissal.

On opposite end, my link was at least clear on attributes of a good language. These were specifically mentioned: predictable, consistent, concise, reliable, debuggable. The author gave specific examples showing PHP lacks these traits. An analysis of Python or Ruby show them to embody these traits much more while also possessing the supposed advantages PHP fans tell me including easy learning, many libraries, huge community, tools, etc. So, the evidence indicates PHP is a poorly designed language (or not designed at all) while some competitors are well-designed languages with most of same benefits.

Other authors say about the same about both philosophy and specific details showing why PHP is a pain to work with if you want robust software along with building skills a good developer should have.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-PHP-hated-by-so-many-developers

http://phpsadness.com/

https://blog.codinghorror.com/php-sucks-but-it-doesnt-matter...

Truth be told, though, the burden of proof is on you PHP supporters to show why PHP is a good language and people should use it. I claim it was a mere pre-processor that had all kinds of programming language features bolted onto it over time to let it handle certain situations. That's not design at all. Python and Ruby are designed languages with consistency, core functionality for many situations, extensions/libraries, and optionally the ability to pre-process web pages. World of difference in both language attributes and quality of what people produce with them. So, not only have you presented no evidence of PHP's alleged good design, I've presented evidence against it and for two competitors have better designs.

Feel free to back up your claims with some actual data rather than dismiss whatever data anyone else brings up. I mean, you want to dismiss the guys ranting feel free. Can even edit all that crap out to leave just the data and arguments. Same for other links. Resulting text still supports our claims against PHP. So, status quo among professionals should be "PHP Is Garbage" that leads to buggy, hard to maintain, insecure, slow software. It will remain until PHP's community proves otherwise and demonstrates their counter-claim in practice with apps possessing the opposite of those negative traits.