Six Reasons PHP Sucks

Chris,

The link (http://omniti.com/~jesus/misc/PHP%20Sucks.swf) is throwing a 404...

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 at 18:55:19 GMT Link

One of the most annoying things in PHP is PHP's fastCgi support.

besides fcgi support i don't have any other complain

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 at 19:07:32 GMT Link

I completely agree with lexically scoped variables and namespaces. Seriously. We need those.

My number 1 reason that I wouldn't use PHP (or perl) in a heavy load environment is the lack of database connection pooling. 1 connection per Apache thread? That's insane. That's the one place Java will always beat PHP (or perl).

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 at 21:53:46 GMT Link

http://terrychay.com/blog/article/php-sucks.shtml

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 00:36:35 GMT Link

It must be "We Love Java Week".

Is it celebrated at the same time every year?

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 10:43:03 GMT Link

last reason:

Java sucks more, but he can't cover that in five minutes.

can be rewriten:

Flash sucks even more and more and you could cover that in fist minute you start it!

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 13:48:37 GMT Link

This reads like a 5 year old. Has he ever considered making a cogent point with anything resembling intellect?

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 14:36:06 GMT Link

I enjoyed Theo's talk a lot, but I did think the shot at PEAR was beyond exaggeration for humor's sake and into the realm of unfounded criticism. The PEAR code I've used -- and I don't use a ton, but what I do use I use a *lot* -- seems pretty good to me, and certainly far above the level of stuff at phpclasses.org or the user-contributed notes in the php.net docs.

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 15:08:38 GMT Link

Luke, I thought it is separated any week of the year you’re not actually trying to get any work done.

Mutant, The idea is to be able to laugh at the deficiencies in your own language.

I wonder if it were PHP5 weren’t out and I said that PHP objects were the most braindead implementation I had ever seen if I’d have been considered over-the-top?

So it is with issues like namespacing, the horrible code examples in the PHP documentation, and the politics that often decided what PEAR library gets in…

Ed, think of it this way, in CPAN almost anyone can put anything in there is code of a lot of variety. In PEAR, only the “good stuff” is supposed to get in (because of no namespacing), and then you look at it. Sure it beats a lot of code snippets you see out there, but then you look at it and say, “This is the good stuff???”

A shiver passes down your spine as you realize that there must be some pretty bad “bad stuff” out there to warrant this library passing the crazy crap politics that is PEAR.

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 19:59:58 GMT Link

"A shiver passes down your spine as you realize that there must be some pretty bad “bad stuff” out there to warrant this library passing the crazy crap politics that is PEAR."

Shit, you know that, though. This is PHP: the power to heal, the power to kill, in the hands of a dork.

But I stand by my statement that there are some very well-done libraries in PEAR, and for quite a while it was the first and best place to look for solid components to build your web apps on. That situation has changed quite a bit in the past 2-3 years, though, but it's not like PEAR is suddenly a turd floating in the bowl of PHP development.

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 20:19:41 GMT Link

"but it's not like PEAR is suddenly a turd floating in the bowl of PHP development"

What an awesome simile!

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 at 20:44:22 GMT Link

I feel like I should defend the user comments in the manual too. They might have passed their prime somewhat, but once upon a time, the PHP docs had more gaps, did not tell you what version a function was added in, and did not mention that a function was completely broken on some versions. Back then, the user comments were invaluable.

The quality of the official docs is now much better, so I am sure that they are less valuable, but I imagine if you went into some of the fringe libraries, the comments might be as useful as the official text sometimes.

Of course, like any free for all systems, it is basically a big vat of floating turds and it is up to you to pluck the goldfish out from between them.

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 at 00:32:45 GMT Link

User comments are user comments :) anyone who takes them seriously has issues. I always scan over them when looking at the documentation and often find interesting snippets.

A lot of crap in the mysql comments as well, but they really add a lot there as well.

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 at 17:16:30 GMT Link

(I hate to say this but...) The difference is that Rich's issues is that they are issues which come "from the trenches". Rich spends a LOT of time in IRC, he's help us all out, I have his book on my shelf, and he is very well known for his effort in supporting the Apache community.

What has Theo done to help PEAR or bring the quality level of PHP manual comments up? There's a difference in being self-deprecating and trashing something that others work hard on.

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 at 13:28:43 GMT Link

Chris, I believe the restriction on PEAR (the politics) comes from the lack of namespacing in PHP. This means that it should be important to revisit the problem after PHP6.

The idea is the lack of namespacing, like with any large PHP installation, is going to cause conflicts because the only thing keeping your libraries sane is a naming convention that you tightly control. This is one of the major weaknesses of a scopeless paradigm of PHP (which caused the lack of namespacing).

In any case, Greg Beaver and others found a great way around some of this crap. The addition of channel subscriptions. It solves the problem of the politics, but makes PEAR very fragmented (at least if your stuff is languishing in an obscure channel somewhere).

It may seem like Theo’s rant is “trashing” but it really isn’t. These were honest design decisions that led PHP in a different direction than other languages. I think we have only to point to PHP’s huge marketshare to know that in many ways, these design decisions were good (or at least, not terribly bad).

User comments, the PEAR library, lack of namespacing, lack of lexical scoping. These are all the strength of PHP.

But sometimes it is fun to poke at when they can be a weakness.

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 at 17:29:01 GMT Link

What a load of crap. I see their is no mention of Inconsistant function names, this is definitely my worst complaint about PHP, other than that it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 at 20:23:37 GMT Link

Your right it probably aint a problem for people who know PHP and have been using it day to day but for new comers to the language I would say it is a major problem, I remember having this problem myself when beginning.

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 at 11:09:35 GMT Link

who needs a rational language design when it comes to working on the web?

Coming from Java and dotNet, I embraced PHP's non-language flat style and actually started getting stuff accomplished.

All you need to do on the web is there in the flat library of functions and hashtables, and the superglobals.

Anybody who tells you you need a rationalized overengineered computing language to do this stuff should be programming guidance systems for lunar rovers instead of putting up a web site.

I am not missing lexical scoping and never use objects except when the utilities force me to.

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 at 14:12:38 GMT Link

Was there a famous quote something along the lines of:

"There is software that people bitch about, and software that no one uses." ?

Another mild irritant is the mandatory "$this->" but there could be (inelegant but) handy workarounds.

My 2 cents.

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 at 14:11:37 GMT Link

How about the fact that I have to hit shift 2x to access an object property? RSI, people.

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 at 03:26:55 GMT Link