Maybe it is just me, but I think these types of discussions/debates
concerning opposing view points on the direction of web programming is
as imperative to the general PHP community (i.e. this list) as the
dangers of register globals and magic quotes etc....
At least more relevant then the infamous PHP Interview thread a week or
so ago ;-)
-B
Martin Alterisio "El Hombre Gris" wrote:
Matt Todd wrote:
There's nothing wrong with staying true to the philosophy at all, I
just think that it may well be detrimental in the end. And that is
what I said in the (toilet)paper, that there will be (emphasis on the
eventuality, not on the present actuality) a time that PHP will become
the old stuff because it did not evolve with the philosophies.
It's true that a language that doesn't evolve with the market will
die, but still you can expect us to follow any new trend because they
believe it's "the way to salvation". Try to think first if the new
philosophies can be properly applied to this market, if they can bring
a proper solution to our problems (if not they will become a new
problem and we don't want that). Anyway, programming languages have
proved to live longer that one could ever expect. Before attending to
PHP's funeral, I'm pretty sure we'll be burying another die harder
language, like the C language, in a very emotional ceremony (I can
almost see it, someone will cry loudly: "I'll miss using your
precompiler macros!").
These philosophies are new and I can understand thinking that it's
hype, but it's important to recognize it as legitimate. Agile
Development (and the broader term Web 2.0) is, right now, the bleeding
edge of development, and I and many others see it as the future of
development philosophies.
Don't say it's good, prove it! All I can see in "Web 2.0" is "those
guys are making more money than us, let's copy them!"
"Those guys" are exploring uncharted area in web development and
they're more worried in making their software work rather than
worrying if the philosophy is appropiate or not. Still, marketing
rules say "no mather how unappropiate your company's philosophy is,
it's the best". Of course they will say "Web 2.0 is the best", is what
they're doing and they don't want anyone to think they aren't giving
the clients the best there is. And now we have to deal with even
crazier request from our clients, like making an AJAX application in a
week that supports all imaginable browsers in the market. They really
believe that AJAX is a fucking walk in the park! AJAX is a fricking
cocktail of death! Bring out the spaghetti code and let us feast on an
eternal reengeneering cycle!
I'm not saying that Rasmus can't see, but that he will easily choose
to stay with how he sees the forest – understandable as I choose to
stay with what I see, but I think he has a lot invested in his view
and may not open up as easily.
Stop blaming the poor guy! He only made a tool he needed and was kind
enough to share it with the world. If you want to blame someone for
what direction PHP has taken, blame us! That's the whole point of PHP
being open source, isn't it? All the current problems in PHP are
directly or indirectly caused by whining developers and their
extravagant requests. Magic quotes are bad? Well, teach those bastards
to properly quote their sql's strings!
You think that currently PHP is being lead to unavoidable doom? By all
means, be my guest and make PHP++, for all I care. The code it's there.
To Stut:
Honestly, I'd love to see basic variables be objects, as models of
real world data with properties for the data such as a $number->length
or $word->as_array() giving you letters.
Have you stop to think what the efficiency cost would be to make
everything an object? We're already suffering much to avoid the
"waiting 2.5 second it's way too much" cutline (they say we can't do
real time applications) and you want to keep adding functionality that
will deteriorate this? I love the way basic types are handled by PHP,
I specially love PHP arrays, if you touch them, I fucking kill you!
I know that PHP is a functional language, and secondly, an OO
language, but I think that you can blend these things better and have
the OO brought to the forefront a bit more. Yes, I'm a fan of OO, but
I know that many people aren't and don't use PHP's OO (and don't when
it's appropriate). But I know you can integrate OO without having to
force the functional programmers to give up their way.
Have you been attending to your CS lessons? PHP is an *IMPERATIVE*
language, and secondly, that the language provides OOP features
doesn't make it an OO language. Maybe you have chosen your language
wrongly, you should try JSP or any other Java based web server
technology.
PS: I think you have the terms wrong. What you're calling functional
programming may be what is usually known as procedural programming.
This is just ONE thing that could make PHP better and allow for more
modern philosophical development. Particularly, I would like to see
more creativity. Sure, PHP's moving fast, but with our big things
being Unicode support and removing globals and safe mode, I think that
we could be a little more innovative for PHP6.
Again, it's not behind the times right now, but the times are changing
and I'd like to see PHP change with them.
M.T.
I won't deny times are changing, there're a new problems that needs
solving, but you keep focusing on the solution and you're no seeing
what the real problem is. First there has appeared the need to create
light-weight client applications inside a browser that's currently
being solved by the infamous AJAX. Anyone who has ever developed such
an application knows how a pain in the ass this can be. Secondly, the
look and feel of a web site has changed a lot, and they have become
more complicate in their representation. There is the need to come up
with new ways of structuring a web site in the data layer to
accomodate to the rythm nowadays sites need to change their looks and
content.
Still I don't think this is a question of how server and client
technologies are used, but a problem in the foundations of the whole
systems. In other words, HTML and HTTP do not satisfy our needs
anymore. Let's face it, we've gone a little bit further of what
hypertext was supposed to be.
Anyway, I didn't want to keep on ranting about these matters on the
list but I just have this mail in the drafts folder begging me to be
send. I'll try to continue offlist, sorry to bother you all.
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