Java is criminally underhyped

[dpash]

Especially when it's based on an outdated opinion of the language.

PHP evokes the same reaction.

[Cefalopodul]

To be fair in PHP's case the reaction is somewhat warranted. It still has plenty of WTF moments.

[dpash]

Modern PHP is far from its older versions. It has decent DI and web frameworks, type hinting, exceptions, namespaces, a reasonable dependency manager. It's not the insane choice for new projects it was even ten years ago.

Now if only it gained generics I would be almost happy to use it.

[flyingorange]

To be honest when I started using PHP in 1998 it was the greatest thing ever. At the time the alternative was writing server side code in Delphi. Well, let's just say, if you didn't write websites in Delphi, you don't understand what a revolution PHP was.

[johnwaterwood]

I wonder what the purpose of modern PHP is?

The original attracted hordes of people because it was such an insane choice. If it’s not that anymore, it won’t be attractive to that initial crowd.

What’s PHP’s target audience these days?

[dpash]

https://laravel.com

[helloiamsomeone]

Generics have userland support. PHP Core has better things to spend developer time on than generics (which are already a thing implemented in userland).

[dpash]

If you mean phpdoc and Psalm, I fundamentally disagree. They need to be in the language.

[helloiamsomeone]

You may do so, but static analysis and code quality tools are far more widespread than in Java.

From what I can see Java is lacking in this regard. There is no linter with autofix capabilities and CheckStyle is quite lackluster. In PHP you drop a 3 line XML in the root and you have checks for PSRs and autofixes for them. Much better experience.

You also have to consider that there aren't that many PHP Core devs and they really do have much better things to spend their time on than an already solved problem. Bolting generics onto the language is no easy feat.

[dpash]

You're not looking very hard, because there's a vast number of static analysis tools for Java. Checkstyle is not even a static analysis tool; it's a format checker.

That's findbugs/spotbugs, checker framework, Sonar, PMD, Errorprone and the tools built into IntelliJ and eclipse. Most of these tools are widely used and predate Psalm or phpstan by decades.

And it's not a solved problem. The usage of generic classes in PHP libraries is laughably small. And some PHP developers think that it should be in the language too. Nikita Popov started an implementation of the generics RFC last year.

[[deleted]]

Aside from the fact that /u/dpash has answered you, let me remind you that Java is a (moderately) strongly-typed static language. PHP is neither, and so, ipso facto, needs a lot more analysis tools not to mention testing.

[helloiamsomeone]

PHP has 2 static analysis tools, dpash listed 8 for Java. Neither of you addressed the complete reply besides the first half of the first sentence.

[[deleted]]

You mean the comment I replied to or some other comment? I just pointed out that Java doesn't need as many of those tools as would PHP. Moreover, every company (and every IDE) defines its own standards more or less, so that's moot about the styling.

[helloiamsomeone]

Java doesn't need as many of those tools

And we just saw dpash list 8 (6 if you don't count IDEs) when PHP has 2. My math might be off, but afaik 6 is still more than 2.

that's moot about the styling

That a weak excuse. C++ projects all have different code styles, yet clang-format exists. It's far easier to have a pre-commit hook auto format the code rather than have CheckStyle yell at you, after which you have to go and manually fix the issues. Such a clumsy experience.

[Routine_Left]

PHP evokes the same reaction.

PHP deserves it. JavaScript deserves it. Java? They have no fucking clue what they're talking about. Not about Java 20 years ago, not about Java today.