PHP, I just don't like it.

Pretty Huge Problem

Paul was nagging me about my well grounded hatred of PHP on Mikado today, I figured it'd be best to reply here, so I can point Pauls children toward the rant in 20 years (I doubt PHP will get any better and I'm sure Paul will start his kids off early on it)

This is a good link on a professional web developer who had used php for many years before abandoning it. He makes many good points, and rather than repeat them, I'll give you this link, and talk about my own experiences. Experiences of Using PHP in Large Websites

It is a shitty language to administrate over, maybe Phil can talk some more about that. I am not an administrator, but I do act as a middleman between people complaining and the Minds sys-admins a lot. PHP is almost always the problem, in short. We've upgraded perl/python/ruby/ many times, yet I never feel the need to check all the perl/python/ruby scripts are still working each time we do it. I've never got a phonecall from someone saying their perl programs or python scripts mysteriously stopped working, for no good reason. With PHP, one upgrade usually requires us to go checking every app, every type of app, and every version. Usually someone is unlucky in these upgrades, and we have to tell them either upgrade your program or change program , but we can't keep it running, its not compatible. Often they ask...
Why are you upgrading PHP if it just breaks everything?
Thats a fair question. We upgrade because of the frequent security holes in PHP. Not that upgrading solves them, it just postpones the issue.

There is a whole ream of bullshit involved in working with PHP that frustrates me and most of the Minds people who ever deal with members problems.

A PHP application not working is usually down to one of the following things...

a) We are using the wrong version, (this is true when we use php4 and php5) Building a language that ignores backward compatibility is silly.
b) We are using safe mode (Any language that needs a safe mode is in trouble already)

c) We are no longer using safe mode (This also causes problems)

d) The weird mysterious php global variable is set to true, when it should be false, but setting it false breaks it for other people.(There are many of these mystery variables)

So, it might be easy to start learning how to code websites in, and as a result there are hundreds of identical "Enter your name in the Box" , "Oh Hello Des" progams floating around the net. Like a tricycle, it might be a good place to start, but if you stick with it you'll look like a fool eventually. It is not a good language from an enterprise architecture point of view (Maybe something Dave Cahill can talk about), and it is most certainly a nightmare to maintain servers running php applications.

I realise the irony of typing this on PHP coded blog, but serendipity is a great application, and it has never caused any hassle. Well done to the guys who created it, they deserve major kudos.

On an unrelated note, if you know little about Unix, here is a great cheat sheet...
How to look like a Unix Guru