Tony, are we to understand that you don't particularly care for PHP?
You went on to say "In the end ... PHP is a language, use it or
don't. " so I'm a little confused. The critique that I've heard
most often about PHP is that it's "only a scripting language, not a
REAL language" and somehow that distinction means something? I'm of
the mindset that it either solves a problem or it doesn't, and at
least for me, PHP provides what I need to solve a lot of problems in a
format that works better than a number of the alternatives.

I agree with Kevin's comment when he said "Most often the problem is
the "craftsman", not the tool they are using." One doesn't have to
look far to see some pretty butt-ugly PHP code. Or Multivalue BASIC
code. Or ASP code. Or Java code. Or... fill in the blank. Despite
that, there has been some pretty darn good looking code written in
every language... ..except possibly Perl. ;-)

(P.S. Yes, I'm joking. There's a lot of cool Perl. I just don't want
to have to maintain it.)

I apologize that my humorous name variants gave the impression that I
don't like PHP. I can't say I "like" PHP, but I appreciate it for
being the base of most of the web-based software that I use - it is of
course the P in LAMP. To me it's FAR better than Perl for regular
use. I also appreciate Perl as a spartan and efficient language,
though I don't enjoy using it for real work. There used to be some
competition between PHP and Perl being the P in LAMP but PHP dominates
these days. If you're going to run something like WordPress or Drupal
or most other FOSS website apps, you simply must use PHP. So like it
or not it's the standard and sort of needs to be respected for that.
This reminds me of the military saying "salute the rank, not the man".

PHP syntax isn't that bad, it's other details that make it a bear. I
frequently look at PHP and can't tell the difference between that and
C#, Java, or JavaScript - except for obvious cues that stand out on
closer observation. In that respect I think it's kinda neat. For a
"real" programmer PHP is a decent tool that just gets the job done.

That brings us to the amateurs. I fully agree that the problem is
with the craftsman and not the tools. PHP is adopted by most
beginners as their first language, combined with JavaScript, so most
of the mainstream modules and extensions you see out there have just
crossed the line to being functional, but they're stylistically
"Horrendous" and they're missing the details that make functional
software "good". Unfortunately amateurs write rubbish that on the
face of it is tough to distinguish from decent software when it's
advertised as "Magic Module v0.2.1". This is what makes FOSS such a
PITA - you have to wade through this stuff, try it, discover it's
faults, then decide whether to fix it or go find something else. With
the level of expertise so low to produce LAMP-based FOSS, the quality
of software available has dropped, as have people's understanding of
the expertise required to make truly good software. Companies want to
hire low-cost amateurs to create their websites - or just download and
run everything for free. They don't understand that they need to pay
for the services of people who have been honing their craft for some
decades. PHP has become representative of what "everyone" uses,
what's popular, what's inexpensive to use, as well as some "pretty
horrible programming". For this reason I tend to disparage PHP a bit,
but it's not an awful tool on its own.

T

Kevin King wrote:

On Sep 9, 8:55*am, Kevin Powick <nos... (AT) spamless (DOT) com> wrote:
Thanks for suggesting that I might not be totally off my rocker on
this one, Kevin. I wasn't trying to rewrite history, in this case,
just went to verify that what I recalled as the name (which was
incorrect as I was thinking "Pretty HTML Page") really was the
original name. When I couldn't find it at all, you helped me come up
with the correct one as Pretty Home Page sounded exactly like what I
heard when I first learned of the language. I likely learned of this
language quite soon after it was developed as I stayed pretty current
on such fronts at the time.

I also recall that quite soon thereafter, the author and others came
up with other meanings for the name, thinking that Pretty Home Page
was not a cool name for a language. If you really wish to purge your
original name from the history books, you can write up the history as
you want it to be, but you cannot purge everyone's memory. I'm pleased
to see that others have the same recollection as I do (well, I at
least remembered the Pretty part). I recognize that it might have been
inaccurate or just a rumor at the time, so there is a slim chance, in
my opinion, that the php history on the php website is accurate in
leaving out the Pretty Home Page name. cheers! --dawn