I think I'm quitting PHP

[phpSensei]

Hello,

 

So its been on my mind lately wether I should develop web based applications in PHP or try Python.

 

After having a read over here (I know it seems PHP is better in some ways):

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonVsPhp

 

And I know what you might think... it may be a biased opinion, but the functionality and facts are listed there that you will find in many other places.

 

 

edit: View the comparison in the link.

 

 

There's alot of Retorts in here, but in comparison to the language itself I am very much comfortable with Python than PHP.

 

In my opinion, they are just as powerful as eachother.

 

 

[KevinM1]

Program with what you want.  Language evangelism is useless.

 

FWIW, describing a language in terms of 'power' is nonsense.  How do you measure a language's power?  What's the metric?  Unit of measurement?

 

Either you enjoy a language or don't.  Don't try to couch your reasoning in BS terms like 'power'.

[The Little Guy]

power = speed

 

That is how I rate it.

[xylex]

power = speed

 

You counting the speed of development or the speed of code execution?  Because hiring a team of developers to write a website in assembly seems like a waste of resources.

 

Every language has its strengths and weaknesses depending on the task at hand, and if your language/platform/framework/etc agnostic, and know many of them, you can easily learn to leverage the best strengths for whatever task is at hand.  I'll have to dig if you make me source this, but there's one study out there that showed the one metric that could consistently predict the productivity of a programmer was the number of languages that programmer knew. 

 

Translating this into the real world, I just landed a job with a major software company not based on any language or platform they used that matched what I knew, but rather on my track record of being able to quickly pickup whatever language/framework/api etc I needed for the task at hand and integrate it into any system.  So learn Python, but don't totally abandon PHP or claim one is universally better than another.  A nice learning project might be leveraging Python's strength as an SOA architecture while using PHP as a web frontend to it.

 

[JasonLewis]

I'm with xylex, why would you just throw it aside and quit a language? Seems a bit silly to me. There will always be cases where a task will be better suited to a particular language, which is why developers go about attaining many tools for their toolbox.

[trq]

I've felt much the same for the last few years.

 

For me, it's about the (non-existent) ecosystem around PHP. Take a look at something like Ruby, it has a massive (almost cult like) following of good developers. There are so many more quality tools, and allot more people thinking outside of simple web development. Python is much the same.

 

In my eyes PHP hasn't had this for many years. Sure, there are probably more people still using PHP, but there are allot of poor PHP programmers. I really think that most of the good PHP developers have either left, or are just not that interested in communities outside of the few exceptional frameworks that are around.

 

Allot of this comes down to PEAR I think. PEAR is far to monolithic in my opinion. A nice singular repository to store libraries is a great idea, but why do those libraries really need to be made part of the singular PEAR project? Ruby has Gems, and anyone can create a Gem and besides the spec file and a few other requirements you can do what you like with a Gem. PEAR just isn't as flexible. On top of that is the fact that allot of PHP developers simply think that going to the command line to install something is just too hard.

 

It's a completely different attitude surrounding PHP when compared to Ruby or Python. And that, IMO, is why these two languages in particular are making allot of ground, and also one of the same reason node.js will make allot more ground over the next few years.

 

Would I ever declare I am giving up PHP? No, it would be hard to unlearn what I have learn't. Would I rather be using Ruby or Python? Yes.

 

 

[phpSensei]

Thorpe good read,

 

I personally love Python because I am more comfortable with the language's paradigm, however thats a another big problem I have noticed in the past few year... a community of poor programmers.

 

PHP has gained the popular title of "Find a client, goto a help forum, make quick cash". Nobody wants to even flip through a paragraph of PHP anymore. I love how Python forces you to learn the basics of object oriented programming...Its the heart of the language.I have been coding in PHP since 2006 and in python for 2-3 years, I can say there's a big difference in their programmers.

 

edit: However I am sticking by this community no matter what, going to help out in the PHP coding section, don't get me wrong here, I just don't plan on having a bright future with PHP itself. I have lost much hope recently..

 

I'm with xylex, why would you just throw it aside and quit a language? Seems a bit silly to me. There will always be cases where a task will be better suited to a particular language, which is why developers go about attaining many tools for their toolbox.

 

Python can do pretty much anything PHP can, also I always create dll's/libraries in C++, and import them into Python, I understand the toolbox terminology.

[KevinM1]

I've felt much the same for the last few years.

 

For me, it's about the (non-existent) ecosystem around PHP. Take a look at something like Ruby, it has a massive (almost cult like) following of good developers. There are so many more quality tools, and allot more people thinking outside of simple web development. Python is much the same.

 

In my eyes PHP hasn't had this for many years. Sure, there are probably more people still using PHP, but there are allot of poor PHP programmers. I really think that most of the good PHP developers have either left, or are just not that interested in communities outside of the few exceptional frameworks that are around.

 

Allot of this comes down to PEAR I think. PEAR is far to monolithic in my opinion. A nice singular repository to store libraries is a great idea, but why do those libraries really need to be made part of the singular PEAR project? Ruby has Gems, and anyone can create a Gem and besides the spec file and a few other requirements you can do what you like with a Gem. PEAR just isn't as flexible. On top of that is the fact that allot of PHP developers simply think that going to the command line to install something is just too hard.

 

It's a completely different attitude surrounding PHP when compared to Ruby or Python. And that, IMO, is why these two languages in particular are making allot of ground, and also one of the same reason node.js will make allot more ground over the next few years.

 

Would I ever declare I am giving up PHP? No, it would be hard to unlearn what I have learn't. Would I rather be using Ruby or Python? Yes.

 

This is exactly why I'm focusing on ASP.NET MVC.  It's essentially Microsoft's version of RoR.  A lot of the way it's structured is lifted wholesale from RoR, including the way packages are handled (NuGet = Gems).  The only draw back is having to tie yourself to Microsoft's ecosystem, which, as we all know, can be expensive.  The Website Spark and Bizspark programs help mitigate those costs, but they're still present.

 

The point is, there's a small, but thriving, community of MVC devs.  There are new packages added to NuGet all the time, everything from Facebook integration to IoC containers.  The big names associated with MVC (Hanselman, Guthrie) write blog posts all the time, and are more than willing to help out on Twitter.

 

PHP feels splintered.  You have Joomla over here, Drupal over there, a cluster of frameworks (Zend, CakePHP, Code Igniter, Kohana, Symfony) in the third corner...  There isn't any kind of unified front to rally behind.  Maybe that speaks to PHP's flexibility, I dunno.