Well maybe other programmers which worked with Zuck on facebook were php only ?

Why are we making wild assumptions here?

Nobody can actually know what was real reason anyway so assumption is only thing what you can do.

Why do you say that? Engineers from Facebook have done interviews about it; search Google. Besides, I still don't see what the point is: are you running a site the size of Facebook? Then it shouldn't be in PHP, unless you implement the technology they have to mitigate PHP's shortcomings when it approaches massive scale. If not, then why does it matter? It's good enough for 80%+ of the web.

Not to mention the next biggest site running on PHP is Wikipedia. And they don't use HHVM or Hack. All they use is a typical LAMP based stack.

mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Installation_requirements

Basically what I am getting at here is: Don't discredit a perfectly good language because of a bunch of asinine developers who don't even make up 1% of the community, let alone the professional ones.

All languages have their strengths and weaknesses. It's all about picking the best one for your project and going with it.

PHP, Python, Ruby, Lisp, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, or Brainfuck. The choice is yours. Make a smart decision.

For the record I am a professional PHP developer working on a multi-million dollar company who's whole technology is built on top of the latest standards and best practices of PHP. Our system handles hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in transactions without so much as a hiccup.

My choice is PHP, dont know for others lol
And here is one funny pic regarding languages :
http://vintage-digital.com/hefner/mi...rogrammers.jpg

Welcome to the zoo, Bowser Koopa ...

Am I the only one annoyed by the fact haystack comes before needle :upsidedow

Expert people are effective, and so do not re-invent the wheel. Also "coder" is generic, for example the developer of a 3d videogame may be unable to write an easy web site, and vice-versa - it is even hard to find a single person able to write both iOS and Android apps, or a single developer using well 2+ languages, so much different info it needs to be known.

Really, my sites was based on existing scripts, but ended up 80% different: one started from a tube script and ended as a cam site! This is starting from template (for ex. users db and backoffice admin), to build an unique product quicker. Time to market, want you launch a few sites now or one only years later?

The main point of programming it is the code reuse, i.e. to produce the most results in least effort and time. You may write from scratch small specific tasks (you not find done by others with google search), but if there's a ready open source code, use it. Especially a cam site is product of teams of developers across years, hardly a single one, unless recycled pieces. If there's commercial code with source license for less $$ than the worth of you rewriting it, buy the code, and you're more smart than wanting to rewrite all from scratch.

A guy can still demonstrate he can rewrite all from scratch, but this a no-profit activity, like "demo scene" or hack compos, the opposite of what commercial developer are supposed to do. More LEGO blocks a developer knows and compose together, quicker (cheaper) you solve problems, because you write the least code lines, just few glue between blocks others provided and tested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_reuse

Why use Wordpress when you can rewrite it in PHP, and why to use PHP when you could use C. So 80% of the sites run wordpress, joomla, drupal, in turn made in PHP, in turn made in C, in turn calling libs calling OS (linux etc.) which calls firmwares calling assembly opcodes, in turn easier representation of binary numbers, ran by processor and chips.

So the guy who write "all from scratch" should really send own binary opcodes to a CPU and hardware to simulate an operating system and web server and apps on top of it; anyone? While this example looks obviously silly, it helps to figure the "why don't you write all yourself" question: because it is not effective, but instead more expensive, at least in 2014, given there's so much free ready code you can't even keep updated on all of it.

That was not the case in 1995 when I was writing sites, indeed, in C language, already was a big improvement from assembly I used before, but while this is cool to talk about in retrocomputing meetings, if you do sites as real job, you more likely do quick and cheap with PHP on the web, as long as you know PHP (and its frameworks), than in other ways. And in adult that's PHP-only due to historical reasons, in mainstream it is diversified.

Said this, web development itself it is a mess, not just PHP, but for ex. Javascript (see: http://wtfjs.com ), Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Chrome versions, and google SEO. SO in all this mess you can well overlook an !== FALSE or so.

Nope, because I use a proper IDE/Editor that has code completion on both a language and project level.

Only if a monster triggers a trap..

The annoying part is that it's inconsistent. In other built-in functions, it's reversed. *twitch*

It really all depends on whether you are looking for a needle in a haystack or looking in a haystack for a needle.

It really does make perfect sense.

Seriously.

:helpme

.

Here's a little tip to help you remember:

Array functions are $needle, $haystack

String functions are $haystack, $needle

Lengthy thread, well worth the read. There were some points I was waiting for a quote from "The Mythical Man-Month".

Several things which were not raised included:
-- porn industry introduced a lot of innovations which are now used by other internet marketers;
-- most PHP are self-taught, with almost no programming background other than HTML, Javascript and CSS (which are interpreted or script languages);
-- most startups are small and remain small, and don't have the manpower, skill and training to go to any other language other than what is readily available; and
-- and yes, most PHP code have errors due to the inherent weakness of the language, and then coded by people who don't know what happens when there's no validation.

Bottom line people will still use PHP because they don't know anything else.

Again, thanks for the heads up. Will keep that in mind when I'm debugging PHP code.

I disagree. Anybody who's anybody worth anything in the PHP development world are firm followers of the PHP-FIG standards, and basically call phptherightway.com their manual. I personally will not work with, or hire anyone to join my team who does not follow those proper rules and guidelines.

We enforce them at LeadWrench right now.

IIRC with some functions it's haystack,needle and in others it's needle,haystack. No one ever complimented PHP for being consistent. :pimp

edit: I see this has already been pointed out.:thumbsup

Actually, even with that it's still pretty consistent, like I stated before, Array functions are $needle -> $haystack, and String functions are $haystack -> $needle

Was just going to say, depends on the function. And that's what makes it frustrating! The standard library is replete with examples like that.

That's a good thing!

Why didn't they let us chose like this :

stripos(needle=$input, haystack=$pile);
stripos(haystack=$pile, needle=$input);

:1orglaugh

Or why not just make something that regular people understand like

Find $this in $that;

Too much like COBOL I guess, tech people feel too "untechy" when using COBOL.

:1orglaugh

I feel like you've all but called me an idiot here. I realize that the opinions about languages can inspire some passionate responses, and that's good.

It's very obvious to me that you are one of the few out there who believes in doing things the right away, according to style guides, PSR, etc. That's awesome, and I sincerely applaud you for that. These are things I also care about, and it frustrates me when I read others' code which is inconsistent, messy, or overly complicated without reason.

However, Scala and Java have their own pros and cons, and my experience has been positive. We are working on some large-scale applications and the decision to use Scala has been paying off. The JRE is portable, eliminates (in many cases) some extra overhead (web server, e.g. massive .htaccess files), and gives us almost out of the box a very scalable, stateless environment that can expand and contract effortlessly.

It's really about using the best tool for the job. I still write a lot of PHP and I still endorse it for certain projects.

Let me start out by saying: absolutely not. I don't punish intelligent opinions with personal attacks. If you didn't have a point, I'd definitely have been less accepting of your argument. My replies are geared toward the people reading your comments, not at you making them. One of the problems with the lack of technical sophistication on GFY is that people see a complex technical point, read about one line of it, and then run with the opinion they immediately form. So, with you making these statements, those of us in development will have to hear "but PHP sucks for all sites!" for a long time. If I don't respond with a very strong statement, that's their take-away. I hope that makes sense, and you aren't offended.


Agreed. I enforce these standards in our employees, and deliver them when I am working for a client. It makes the code maintainable, scalable, and extensible. Otherwise, you're just kidding yourself. As you know, a number of well-known projects in adult don't begin to meet proper standards, and are so poorly coded as to be embarrassing to anyone competent. Not naming any names, but I'm sure half a dozen immediately pop into your mind.


I'm a programmer, not a web developer, so C++, Python, Java, etc, are my go-to tools for most problems that need solving outside of the web sphere. My point is just that adult does not solve complex (or even interesting) problems in 90% of cases, and PHP *is* the correct language for maintainability and extensibility, if not for scalability (which most projects here don't even need).

Often, it's more important that someone else can work with your code, than the language being a better choice for X, Y, or Z reason.

That's some shitty code...

Wow good stuff, php is growing with it's popularity. Hopefully the coders will grow as well.

Yeah, pretty soon PHP will be big. :Oh crap Wait, what? :1orglaugh

My bad for taking your commentary so personally. That was kind of lame of me.

My convictions for one language over another are limited to the scope of the project. PHP's ubiquity makes it the most attractive language in many cases, but not all, at least for my needs. My caution to anyone looking to begin a project is to pick the best language/platform/environment for the job and consider all the variables.

You're right that adult doesn't handle interesting problems most of the time. Pretty much anything can be done in the LAMP stack.

No harm, no foul. Like I said, my focus is always on maintainability and extensibility, with scalability being a third concern.

I should clarify my last comment for a broader audience: what I mean is that I always focus on how easy it is for the next guy to maintain any code produced, and how easy it is for the next guy to add features to the existing code.

I'm sure a lot of people have heard "fuck, that is awful, we have to rebuild it." Sometimes that's true, and sometimes it's just a lazy or inexperienced developer. I write code to avoid that situation.

By using PHP for your project, you expand the availability of qualified and price-effective engineers available to support and extend your product.

:thumbsup

That's really what matters!

javascript scare me
java sun and python create good virus
i'm not java :1orglaugh

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0-h800/job.jpg
just saying.. :1orglaugh

True, but seldom what happens. In most coding environments, validation and QA take up most of the time. In web programming a lot of the code is done by people who did not start out as programmers.

The website works, and every so often the page fails, and then we fix it. Such is life in internet time.

Wow, sorry to hear you have to go through that. Hope things get better. Look into unit testing, if you want to cut out a lot of the BS taking up by validation, QA, etc.

I am a programmer. Started way way back programming 8086's in machine language 'cause that's what was around... Even did some web stuff in assembly 'cause that was the fastest way to do it. These days programmers don't seem to feel the need to make stuff run efficiently. They use resources like they're nothing and when something is slow they use more machines... sure, that's a solution, but in my opinion not a very good one. It makes huge monsters of programs with unreadable code and patches upon patches upon patches...

A web programmer needs to know a server-side scripting and a client side one. Of course, you don't need the client side per se, but the power of thousands of computers ran by the visitors can make a site faster than doing all the math on the server. At the same time doing the same calculations over and over again for every single user when you don't have to doesn't make sense. So it's never easy to decide to do something server/client side. I use PHP for the server, and a combination of MySQL ('cause of it's HUGE flexibility and enormous possibilities in queries) and Redis ('cause of it's mere speed, thehun for instance is ran in PHP using Redis as the Database, life from the DB, no other caching. We also run our banner rotation in PHP/Redis, rotation, geo/device targeting, stats, all live, and all in PHP/Redis). On the client site I use a lot of jQuery, which is basically a layer over JavaScript. Very useful if you use it right.

I'd rather spend 2 days figuring out how to make a program run faster or how to get a query more effective than to spend any time on a new server.

A little example of what strikes me as a programmer these days: sites that server video at 76 times the speed (and higher) of the video... How can someone watch a video at 76 it's original speed? Stuff like that is just stupid to me... People burn resources like they're nothing, and up to a certain point they're right of course, but the real programmers, the codes from the old days that have speed in mind, they're rare these days... people rather play around with WorldPress or whatever, which is great for some things, but not for most...

A simple example from this post, can't remember the exact code, but it came down to this:

$v=7
$retval=($v==7)?true:false;

this is a waste of resources... the ($v==7) already results in a true or false... And this is just a small thing. I used to work on inner-loops of game engines, trying to get rid of for-loops 'cause the 'checking if the counter reached 0 yet' 'caused an extra cache-miss in the CPU... ok, agreed, that was really going very far, but that's probably why we never used more than one machine for thehun...

Very good post on server resources. Many projects here aren't autoloading, aren't optimizing queries, some don't even have column indexes in their databases! It's .. troubling, at best.

lot of good points in this thread.

one point to consider: in my experience, a lot of startups fail precisely _because_ the code is too good - rather than because the code sucks.

when you are starting a business, perfectionism kills as much as sloppiness.
many techies will disagree, but truth is that business priorities are never aligned with technical priorities. and unless you are in academia or in a basement, when there is a tradeoff between the two, business takes precedence over better code.

in an online startup, a key to success is to understand where the ideal balance lies. this requires both business and (at least some) technical skills. if you don't have some of both, and you are the boss, you are usually in trouble.

If you don't know programming you have to find someone that does. Biggest problem with programmers is that they usually lack any business sense, don't document, dictate what's going on with the software and pretty much make it impossible for anybody to understand what's going on just to make sure they are never kicked out of the loop. That's politics though, I thought this was about the programming side of things :)

Minimum Viable Product is all that matters.

I object to the highlighted part because you make it sound like we do that on purpose.

:1orglaugh

A lot the do. :Oh crap

Al lot do indeed. I see that with a lot of sites that are beyond startup. Sad really. Comes to proof: if you don't have the technical knowledge make a programmer part owner of the company so at least you're both on the same side. Do make sure you find a programmer that understands programming alone doesn't make anybody money. You need more than just good programming. Marketing, good ideas, stuff like that. 1+1=3 so to say...

In my experience, those who are currently programmers who had no prior corporate training and experience, or who did not go through programming courses, have problems with documentation.

On the other hand, I remember the time when IBM was pushing their standards on every big project, where 80% of the time is spent on design and validation, prior to coding.

The fine line right now in webdev is that of getting the project running online, and fixing it as it goes. Kind of like the Yorktown getting fixed at sea while en route from the Battle of the Coral Sea right to the Battle of Midway.

Prototyping is not the most efficient way to program, it is the fastest way to show results though, so 'cause of pressure from anybody that doesn't know programming it's often used as the way to go. Admitted: I also prototype a lot. I'd like to know at an early point whether something works or not, so I make a proof-of-concept to play around with before I build. Not really prototyping, but the next bad thing :)...

It works though. Although fixing one thing might mean you're breaking something else. That's why I'm all for documenting right, create API's to enable different programmers can work on the same thing and not mess with the lower layers when they don't have to. Data abstraction is a good thing! It might cause some overhead (and I hate wasting resources usually), but there is the law of diminishing returns which means that it's good to have some overhead if that overhead will be made back by maintainability. Well, actually the law describes the opposite where you shouldn't put more effort in something than it makes back, but it comes down to the same thing...

Usually, you also get what you pay for - i daily have a bunch of requests like "hey, i need this done, how cheap can you do it?", well sometimes it can be done cheap, sometimes it cannot, if you're not prepared to invest in your business and want half way solutions, you will usually do get half way solutions.

Coding takes time and if properly done, takes even more time. For most of coders, they cut on quality or documentation or somewhere in between and hurry up projects just to grab a cheque.

Eventually, it's a mix between finding the right coder and the right client. In adult this doesn't happen too often i think.

I hate to bash on new programmers/scripters. Sometimes people just don't have the occasion to learn PSR standards, etc.

We should try to keep this thread positive and informative for new people learning. I know that there are probably some new people who just haven't learned everything yet (but still want to make things, and that's good!). But these people probably don't know how to use git, write unit tests, manage dependencies, or write even good OO code.

I will agree with Dom, unit testing is amazing and can save a lot of time. You should look into PHPUnit. You can add it as a dependency via Composer. getcomposer.org if you don't have it.

Hopefully that helps you to spend more time writing good quality programs and not debugging and trying to find errors!

Yeah, a lot do... I have some friends who intentionally do that for job security. Stupid. I'd fire someone if I knew they were intentionally making code difficult or not documenting their work. What good is it to have some cryptic system where nobody can read the source!?