It says JOKING about using php, because hurr durr php is stupid caveman language hurr durr of course you shouldn't use it. Idiot. That's dismissive, belittling and straightforward insulting. Yet of course everybody jacks off about elixir or scala or blogs running on custom assembly coded httpd. Because THAT'S smart. And php's bad and stupid. Okay, gotcha.
You converted me. I will stop whining and go code my homepage in haskell. That should keep me busy for a year or so.
A lot of the criticisms were perfectly valid security concerns (some of the old default behaviour was insecure by design). Fortunately the language has evolved a lot and is nowhere near as bad as it once was. Also a lot of the criticisms were based on PHP being an easy "beginner language" and so being used by a lot of people who had no idea what they were doing.
If people have valid criticisms of modern PHP then by all means air them, but don't go ragging on the language in 2019 for problems with PHP written in 2004.
> but don't go ragging on the language in 2019 for problems with PHP written in 2004.
Reputations can be unfair. But there are many characteristics that many developers still find unsavory about PHP, a lot of them fundamental to the language.
It's a bit silly to put a time cap on those characteristics that just aren't going to change. It's really silly to assume people are going to change their tune on a tech stack many actively choose to avoid and have no way of caring or seeing what's changed within the last 3 or so years.
> Reputations can be unfair. But there are many characteristics that many developers still find unsavory about PHP, a lot of them fundamental to the language.
Unless the software developers are paid to wax poetically about those unsavory features rather than affect whatever gets the $$ in the door to pay the software developers salaries "Lolz, lookz at PHPz stupid." is irrelevant.
Those decades of history are largely talking about a PHP that doesn't exist any more.
Yes, the language has it's warts, but if you think $language doesn't, you're just new to it.
There are many large PHP projects that generate tons of revenue. New frameworks like Laravel and Symfony 4 make whipping out MVPs that can scale pretty damn easy.
Every language has valid criticism, you use the right tool for the right job. When you single out one of your tools as "bad" it just highlights that you don't understand what job the tool is for.
Actually, hating on PHP is much older. Heck, if we are to descend into depths of history, let's go straight to the unix haters' handbook and let's find out just why the most ubiquitous and popular server operating system sucks on the most fundamental level.
You're assuming the criticisms between different languages are equatable. It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history.
Invoking platitudes like "the right tool for the job" is irrelevant and isn't going to make that history go away suddenly.
> It's important to understand that there is a reputation and perception that PHP has because of its colored history.
Because no other language has a history?
Look at C it has a coloured history, it has a reputation like any other language, C vs C++, it has bad things like the lack of memory safety, it lacks concepts like object orientation and so on and so on.
>How about trying to do dispute the original premise instead of distracting?
Why must we take a contrary position to what was stated? You do understand that it's a perfectly valid and normal thing to agree with what was stated but pivot the conversation towards something that is more relevant and actionable?
>it seems to me that the Chinese government chooses to prevent events that may cause conflict and violence. That is almost noble, were it not for the fact that it also helps the government maintain a firm grip of control in all situations.
Every single state acts this way. Every single effective state system at least. It's called "Monopoly on Violence." It is one of the defining characteristics of "modern" state organizations.
Unsanctioned use of violence directly threats the state's power and will quickly call into question the state's legitimacy if the state can't control coordinated or wanton violence.
That may be the official policy, but I think you only have to glance at the US to see that it doesn't always act on this. Of course, at some scale, government would be forced to act, but there is a lot of space in between where allowing violence to play out could even be beneficial to a ruling party.
Of course, even with a well articulated source you're downvoted on HN. You think that having a primarily U.S. based audience hackers would be inclined to poke holes in the perception of their own government versus practical reality.
You can tell truths up an down, have all kinds of sources that provide evidence to your claims, and HN will downvote you if it is self-criticism of US government or capitalistic practices that lead to censorship in similar ways as China. It can't possibly be nearly the same here, said the HN downvoter.
It even says "(JOKING)" in the article.