Comments on: Going Back to PHP

By: Fetishizing Programming Languages » Path Dependent

Fetishizing Programming Languages » Path Dependent — Sat, 01 May 2010 17:18:12 +0000

[...] I wrote the title down, remembering someone had said it to me once when critiquing another post, Back to PHP. I searched my email before publishing this post and discovered it was Zed Shaw. This was [...]

By: » Money Isn’t Everything

» Money Isn’t Everything — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:10:06 +0000

[...] My initial instinct was to release Fundify as an open-source application. It is a product for empowering the fund-raising arm of small-medium size non-profit organizations — specifically a small non-profit that has the potential to greatly benefit me. (I really like me.) An open-source project seemed like a particularly good fit. However, the simulator that is my brain was quick to point out that charging a nominal fee for hosting and maintaining this product would be just as beneficial to the non-profit organizations as an open-source product…while making me money. Finding a developer to install the software, set up an SSL certificate, and create a merchant account all take time. The goal of Fundify is to minimize time spent fund-raising by non-profit organizations. They have better things to do. Paying, say, $50 a month might actually be cheaper than spending time finding a volunteer developer. [...]

By: boulabiar

boulabiar — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:12:18 +0000

You cited Facebook,

Facebook uses python !

By: Yawn

Yawn — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:42:52 +0000

It seems every few months somebody makes a “going back to PHP post”, tempers get flared, and the old arguments get rehashed. Nobody cares.

Ruby works for many. PHP works for many (more). Pick your poison and build your apps. Nobody really cares what you use.

By: Evan Carroll

Evan Carroll — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:29:42 +0000

“Sure, but Pear works.”
Kinda, in the “this module is written to support php4, and has runtime evals and other bloody horrible practices.”

“Moreover, integration with PHP is often easier than it is with rails.”
For you, if you’re using a library someone else created, maybe.

When was the last time you noticed that popular api or library lacked a PHP interface? Most sites release official PHP libraries (s3, ec2, facebook, gdata, …)
There are more libraries for Perl than there are for PHP and the average perl programmer knows what a closure is.

Ruby has a massively better and modern syntax. But, Perl is literally stronger in every area than PHP. Use Perl and Moose which effectively gives you all that you’ll miss in the migration from Ruby plus some, and check out the Catalyst framework.

By: mark

mark — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:35:31 +0000

You can write complex website and frameworks without Rails easily.

I have done so. I simply can not say the same about PHP.

PHP has other advantages such as being available almost everywhere on the www.

But as far as language beauty is concerned, ruby beats php easily.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:44:28 +0000

Developing a website from scratch in PHP is pretty tough nowadays, there are so many security issues that you have to watch out for.

I just start with Drupal, which handles the common features (like handling user logins) and they have many more eyes to watch out for security issues.

Then using Views & CCK, a custom theme and possibly custom drupal modules you can create just about anything.

By: KevBurnsJr

KevBurnsJr — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:19:19 +0000

Great way to put it. After spending a month learning rails and eventually going back to PHP I share your sentiments. Learning “the Rails Way” gave me a new perspective on PHP Frameworks.

Also: PHP 5.3 is mega sexy.

By: Scott Conner

Scott Conner — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:05:55 +0000

@Matt Briggs: To say I don’t know other web environments would be presumptuous and blatantly incorrect. Should I make a similarly vague assumption that just because you disagree with me you use Rails?

In fact I’ve used many languages for many reasons, ranging from, but not nearly limited to, PHP, RoR, Java Servlets/JSP, .Net, and that simply in the web domain. (And to assume that you think Java is a great environment for ‘number crunching’ makes me question your position entirely).

That said, I will agree with you that just because you are ‘productive’ (and that definition may vary depending on the developer), doesn’t mean you’ve chosen the right tool for the job. I’ve see plenty of programmers create a nail out of a problem simply because they only know how to use a hammer.

In all, the “which web language/framework do you use?” debate is as pointless as is DirectX/OpenGL flame war. It will always come down to the specific problem, client, timeline, skill set, deployment environment etc.

I choose PHP for my current projects because the development cycle is quick, the projects are small, and I can deploy to a wide variety of hosts just the same – rsync.

(As a completely separate side note, comparing RoR to PHP is pointless as RoR is a framework an PHP is a language. That would be similar to comparing DirectX to Ogre).

By: shadowhand

shadowhand — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:44:57 +0000

If you are looking for a PHP framework that covers most of the same basics as Rails and has excellent internal code, I suggest Kohana.

Disclaimer: I am the lead dev of Kohana.