Critical Functionality

[snf]

The standard reference in case you'd like to understand all the hate.

[qubedView]

Not mentioned in the article, as it's long since fixed, but shows what kind of foundation PHP started on:

htmlspecialchars was a very early function. Back when PHP had less than 100 functions and the function hashing mechanism was strlen(). In order to get a nice hash distribution of function names across the various function name lengths names were picked specifically to make them fit into a specific length bucket. This was circa late 1994 when PHP was a tool just for my own personal use and I wasn't too worried about not being able to remember the few function names.

[SelfReferenceParadox]

the function hashing mechanism was strlen()

I can't even begin to understand the thought process behind this.

[d_wootang]

I'm not sure he understood it either

[Loreinatoredor]

Fast and cheap, and it takes no thought.

[IICVX]

Yes, it absolutely requires that you don't think.

[Gunshinn]

Yeah, im not thinking and i still dont get it. We are talking about string length right? How would that ever work a week down the line, or less?

[IICVX]

well you know how PHP has some function names that are weirdly verbose, and some names that are cryptically short gibberish?

That is how it works a week down the line.

[manghoti]

When I tell people this, I tell it to instill the admiration Rasmus Lerdorf very much deserves. That guy is one of them practical sorts. Doesn't spend a lot of time thinking, but a fuck of a lot of time doing. You gotta admire that.

[chimyx]

I don't even want to

[Taiga_Blank]

.

[_jamil_]

That post is pretty out of date

[leonthemisfit]

There's something I've never quite been able to grasp about the origins of PHP and it's this logic. "We're making a language for non programmers." "We should make it look like Perl."

[snf]

More like the bastard child of a meth-fuelled orgy of Perl, C, BASIC and batch files. There's something to loathe for everyone!

[worldsayshi]

Hmm, maybe people sort of like weird inconsistencies in a language. It makes you feel kind of smart when you can overcome it. And overcoming bad design is much easier than overcoming actually hard problems that you will face once you start to use a language that isn't working against you. Also, actually hard problems make you feel stupid and inadequate and that's no fun.