"The ObjectScript is a new programing language that mixes benefits of JavaScript, Lua, and PHP. The ObjectScript has syntax from JavaScript, multiple results from Lua, OOP from PHP and much more."
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Here is a good starting point:
http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
I used PHP for years and still use it in some places where it makes sense (it's definitely one of the easiest languages to get working quickly and is super common on vhosts)... It could be worse, but it still pains me often enough :-)
Member since:2005-07-08
Member since:2005-08-18
This +1. It explains pretty much everything that's wrong with PHP, and there's a lot wrong with it.
Member since:2009-08-18
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2011-01-28
dikatlon,
"Why is PHP so evil?"
s/evil/bad/
Well, having been a regular user since the beginning, I can say without a doubt PHP is superior in all ways to what it largely replaced: ASP. However that's where my praise ends. The language has suffered from inconsistency and poor SE decision making over the course of it's entire history such that the developer qualifications behind PHP are brought into question. PHP has a history of semantic flip flops creating code incompatibilities.
Ignoring the multitude of teething problems which PHP has been notorious for in the past. Here are current gripes that are often cited (in no particular order):
1. Namespace mess. This is all all the evidence one needs to officially declare the developers as certified amateurs. Also every programmer has their own opinions about whether function names should be camel case, abbreviated, underlined, etc, but at least we agree to pick one convention and stick to it. PHP is the only language I know of where standard functions have completely disregarded any kind of standard naming convention. One has to wonder whether they had any future direction at all.
2. Thread safety risks inhibit web hosts from being able to deploy multi-threaded versions of apache.
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/dont-believe-the-lies-php-isnt-thread...
(I'd appreciate any information about whether they've finally fixed it, but it was still crashing in 2010/11)
3. Unicode.
I'm often called up by clients who find unicode glitches on a website caused by php bugs in handing unicode characters which may have been posted into the database, etc. I replace unicode characters with html equivalents, but unicode should just work these days.
4. Magic quotes.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid...
5. Lack of session concurrency.
I uncovered this this year when I was trying to use concurrent ajax calls to monitor a long running process. One visitor can only have one running script per session. Apache will pass a predefined number of concurrent connections to PHP, but PHP will block them and run them serially. So, the long running process would block all further PHP pages for this visitor until the long running process was complete. This entirely defeated my intended purpose of employing concurrent ajax calls. I ended up writing a C daemon to work around the limitation.
6. Comparison operators
PHP diverges from other dynamically typed languages to use this proprietary syntax.
if (F(x)) {...}
vs
if (F(x)==true) {...}
vs
if (F(x)===true) {...}
PHP's equality personality disorder is a source of bugs and confusion. To make matters worse, we've got expressions like "x>==0".
7. PHP's documentation
Well, PHP documentation is a big plus. I thought it was superb, or so I did before php.net recently injected google search results ahead of it's own function search listings. Why did they do that?? Now I have to scroll through a screen full of irrelevant google listings before I can click on the php.net links I want.
Member since:2005-07-08
Member since:2007-09-22
5. is depends.
4. is gone in 5.4.
2. that isn't true.
Pretty much every extension that is support on Windows has threading support.
The problem is with all the other extensions which are not supported on Windows.
The cause is 2 fold:
1. the library the extension is using does not support threading
2. on Unix/Linux a large share of Apache users still uses pre-fork of FastCGI. Thus threaded PHP does not gets a lot of testing.
Edited 2012-10-01 12:25 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2005-07-08
Point me out, please, fellow humans:
Why is PHP so evil?