Fwd: php (was Re: [unrev-II] Lucid Thinking)

From: Jack Park (jackpark@thinkalong.com)
Date: Tue Sep 25 2001 - 13:20:59 PDT

  • Next message: Eric Armstrong: "Re: [unrev-II] Lucid Thinking"

    >From: "blincoln" <blincoln@ssesco.com>
    >
    >
    >nice rant on gpl versus BSD/apache licenses :) thanks. I can't
    >post to the list still :\ so I just write to you, feel free to forward on.
    >
    >On PHP, PHP has some of the best documentation available
    >for their library code. I wish other systems had similar documentation.
    >
    >There are a lot of things that can be improved on it, but the simple ideas
    >are:
    >
    >1) An entry field at the top of every page, if you type the name of a
    >function, it jumps you to that page. if you type in a non reserved word
    >it does a search (unfortunately their latest revision has shitty search
    >results :( )
    >
    >2) context of current page down left hand side.. so if you're looking at
    >strcmp
    >the left hand index shows all the other string manipulation commands
    >
    >3) (and this is the clincher) the ability for anyone to drop comments onto
    >any page in the documentation. Almost every weird quirk in the
    >operation of the functions is documented with work arounds in the
    >user comments. Links to example code, example code right there, etc.
    >The quality of the comments are excellent. In the past, large revisions
    >of the software have then folded in some of the comments back into
    >the documentation, but I would do this even more than they have.
    >
    >
    >Benefits of PHP generally:
    >1) designed for web use, makes web/html systems easy to build
    >
    >2) html-default so that non programmers are less confused by the
    >code and can often make changes which dont break things, much more
    >so than perl or java (java requires templates to do this to any degree)
    >
    >3) similar code style to C/C++, PERL, including full perl style regex and
    >posix regex, very easy to learn for someone with C/++/java experience.
    >
    >4) very easy to use web-connect tools.. the open(..) function can open
    >remote FTP and HTTP connections. and treat them like a normal file
    >handle. lots of stuff like this. nice.
    >
    >5) pretty damned fast
    >
    >6) multiplatform works well
    >
    >7) open source platform, free mentality
    >
    >8) commercial support available through the zend folks, i believe.
    >
    >9) no compile-step needed for fast prototyping
    >
    >
    >*** The problems with PHP are:
    >
    >1) shitty debugging and lame variable declaration system which
    >leads to serious disease in large systems. Becomes difficult to
    >maintain as projects grow.
    >
    >2) single inheritance classes
    >
    >3) code style not the same as any other language, so you get to learn
    >a new one, hurray! most similar to C++ perhaps.
    >
    >4) no compile step in freeware version (I think that a commercial add on
    >gives compile-ability ?)
    >
    >5) other weak script-like programming issues. java has exceptions, lots of
    >nicely crafted language elements. PHP is a lot looser and feels like
    >it will become extremely unweildy in multi-developer, large projects. The
    >largest project I've done so far in PHP has been probably 30,000 lines
    >with 2 developers and the debugging got pretty hairy. We had to develop
    >our own stack-trace and other debugging systems to keep things running
    >over time. I'm glad I'm not working on it anymore :)
    >
    >anyway, just thought id pass those along, im sure there's more to say
    >on the subject,
    >
    >bcl

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