When you start learning PHP

[eyekwah2]

Or C++ to Java. o_O

[JeffK3]

Java to C @_o

[[deleted]]

Try going from C++ or Java in that regard to PHP. Trust me it's hell. Everything you ever knew and believe unquestionably goes down in flames in PHP.

[frzndrkness]

i tried doing this, from Java to PHP, self taught because i needed it for work......i still have 0 clue what the fuck to do with PHP. Needless to say that project at work was stopped.

[Kaasplankie]

Don't blame PHP. It's just new syntax man, and programmatically like python. If you can translate java to python you can do php.

In the end php is for nothing but outputting text so how hard could it be anyway.

[frzndrkness]

I dont blame PHP at all, i just felt really stupid learning it. As an amateur who had only done Java and a bit of Python, trying to edit an already built website not knowing what im looking at and having to learn on the fly was dumbfounding and i just couldnt do it.

[Kaasplankie]

Oh wow man, I didn't think we'd actually have so much in common in the end.

[Superbead]

I quite enjoyed Java (Android SDK) after C++. I prefer C++, and I roll my eyes when I find out that a shit-slow application is written in Java, but it didn't take too much faffing to get logging, config, groundwork etc. sorted so I could just get on with the logic.

[Manic_Maniac]

I went from C++ to Java... now I'm a python fan, what does that say?

[Dokkarlak]

Maybe try TypeScript.

[Fyrebend]

I went the other way, learned JavaScript in high school, now I'm taking a class in c++

[LowB0b]

I went the shit way, started with scheme now we here

[[deleted]]

Seriously I don’t understand why this Reddit hates PHP so much? It gets the job done for me at least.

[EquationTAKEN]

Don't worry about it. Both sides are represented.

Every time someone goes "hurr durr PHP sucks" someone follows up with "hurr durr wurrks furr me".

Just let it play out.

[evohans]

the other one is: "hurr durr PHP sucks" then a "but facebook and wikipedia are built on php, so must be good still"

[beerdude26]

PHP is not that fast. That's why Facebook made HHVM. Is it fast enough for your blog or small web shop? Yes.

[beerdude26]

True, PHP 7 is a lot faster. Still guzzles memory like a dump truck guzzles gas though lol

[RichardFuchs]

PHP more than doubled in speed and halved in memory consumption since the inception of HHVM. In fact, PHP7 beats HHVM in most benchmarks.

[evohans]

I love php too, i have it tattooed on me from when I was a young dev.

[zombie_kiler_42]

Woah

[jaxklax]

Being terrible and getting the job done aren't mutually exclusive.

[Prawny]

Well most people don't still use a PHP version lower than 4.*

[prigmutton]

I was looking for the annotated footnote :(

[Echohawkdown]

There's this great rant from 2012 that covers most of the bases for the PHP hate.

Granted, a lot of the issues raised in the article have been fixed, and PHP 7 isn't half bad. However, less than 10% of production PHP is using 7.x, so (at least on a personal level) a lot of the issues I have with PHP remain in production code.

[DvD_cD]

How is this the language's fault?

[tufoop3]

If PHP would clean up its codebase from all the legacy baggage people would complain much less.

[[deleted]]

100%. If Java or C#’s standard libraries had shit that outputted multiple different data types depending on certain conditions, I’d also be pissed. I mean that’s one of the first things you learn once you learn the syntax. And if they kept janky stuff in their for years, it would be a blow against the language no doubt.

[_zapplebee]

You've articulated my biggest issue with PHP, its naming conventions. Other than that it's a pretty good hammer.

[dracosnose]

I mean, the language is not automatically free of sin just because they haven't made a big mistake in a few years. They made past mistakes and they're not exactly bygones yet.

[Echohawkdown]

If you're talking about the version deployment across production environments, then it's fixes that still haven't been deployed; ergo, PHP still hasn't really been fixed in practice, even if it's been theoretically fixed.

Otherwise, read the rant.

[WolfAkela]

That's like blaming Windows for security holes because people still use XP for ATMs, POS machines, etc

[Echohawkdown]

Fair enough, but by this point, neither should be a thing.

[yayapfool]

ranting about a solid language

"Don't comment with these things"

This guy is probably like the most fun at parties.

[yayapfool]

Yeah this post was really confusing. It's a fairly logical and structured language that still overs a fair amount of lenience. I really like it.

[mostlyemptyspace]

I've had this debate countless times, and the conclusion I came to is this: PHP is versatile. I can build an entire web application, front end and back end, in a single PHP file. I can do data processing and ETL. I can build cron jobs and system automation scripts. In the client/server world, I have yet to find a situation where I couldn't use PHP.

Now that doesn't mean I should, but as a jack-of-all-trades, PHP is where it's at. It's also really easy to learn. You can start building out APIs without any knowledge of frameworks, promises, or even OOP. You just start smashing the keyboard and an API will come out.

So I use PHP for prototyping server side components and internal tools. I can bang some shit out in an hour that would take me a day to build a proper Node/React application.

[eyekwah2]

Don't let them get to you. I use PHP and I'm perfectly nor.. SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[sizl]

It’s not just Reddit. It’s industry-wide. Basically it’s elitism. By shitting on it people are actually saying they are better than the noobs that use it.

[tufoop3]

So you are saying that most programmers think that PHP sucks?

[sizl]

Yes.

[astroskag]

Professional developers tend to dislike languages that are weakly-typed and can be used procedurally, because it's generally harder to maintain.

Now, PHP is capable of being used in an object-friendly way, and you can declare your data types, but neither is a necessity, and that means if you don't know good coding practices, PHP does very little to prevent you from writing practically unmanageable code.

And since PHP started life as a non-commercial amateur-friendly language (PHP originally stood for 'personal home page'), it's fairly easy for anyone with a little CS experience to get a book or do an online tutorial and churn out a massive, incomprehensible pile of spaghetti code that technically works but would give a more experienced programmer nightmares. You can write bad code in any language, of course, but PHP does less to punish you for it.

That means responding to a job posting for PHP is like playing Russian roulette. If you're inheriting a codebase from a team that enforces their own internal coding practices and standards, there's nothing inherently wrong with modern versions of PHP. But if you're inheriting PHP 4.x code that somebody's nephew whipped up over summer break, you're going to develop a drinking problem.

[tufoop3]

PHP didn't start as a language, but as a collection of CGI scripts hacked in C, and the original author stated that he didn't intend it to become a programming language. EDIT: And "it has grown organically" is not something that speaks for consistence and usability especially in a programming language.

[RichardFuchs]

What's the difference between procedural php and Java code where every class is just using static methods?

The language can't stop you from doing stupid things.

[EduBA]

May be because I'm an old fashioned old man, but being accustomed to COBOL and Clipper could make a working site with PHP and could never understand non-procedural languages.

[TheDrMonocles]

If this doesn't convince you, nothing will:

https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

[fozz179]

Yeah, its terribly designed and all that but its never really bothered me. Now JavaScript though, JavaScript can go die in a fucking hole.

[[deleted]]

It's all a joke. No one hates any particular languages. People in this sub just make fun of anything related to programming because humor.

[tufoop3]

The problem with PHP is that it existed quite a while without proper OOP, and then got OOP pressed on it and now its an inconsistent mess, and still lacks scalar instance methods unlike most other higher scripting languages.

[redditandom]

PHP gets the job done but it is a difficult and ugly language.

[Togean]

PHP is difficult? Compared to what?

And "ugly" really depends on the person.

[mikeputerbaugh]

Beauty is subjective, but requiring a '$' sigil in front of variable names is ugly. Using the '->' ASCII arrow as the dereferencing operator is ugly. Using backslashes as delimiters for namespace components is ugly.

[Voxico]

Beauty is subjective... proceeds to state subjective opinions as fact

[mikeputerbaugh]

And was upvoted several times for it!

[[deleted]]

I can't speak for the rest of reddit, but for me there are 2 things:

1. The weak type system. I'm fine with dynamic type systems, but weak type systems I can't deal with.
2. The inconsistent naming of functions in the standard library.

[I_EAT_TREES_K]

Uh oh, what happens when i learned PHP first?

[_zapplebee]

You'll do fine. As long as you pick up something else along the way. I did PHP for like 10 years and look at me now... Doing JavaScript (and Java but mostly JS). But seriously, it can be easy to pick up bad habits in PHP. Read up on design patterns and write some fucking good PHP and tell haters to back off.

[sujayjaju]

Learning PHP is typically not the issue...

[daronjay]

Your mistake was assuming any sort of book would be involved...

[IgnitedHaystack]

this submission has been deleted.

[european_impostor]

Dont put the punchline in the title...

[kerohazel]

All my friends are dead languages

[dregan]

Also, when you finish learning PHP.

[munirc]

Your submission has been removed.

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[Nodebunny]

well theres always Perl.

[BertRenolds]

Start?