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by evan0202 5513 days ago
PHP using __autoload and namespaces looks and feels exactly like Python using imports. You see, the PHP developers have been actively improving a lot of aspects of the language recently, and the latest release, 5.3, had a ton of really nice improvements and features, such as namespaces.

I'm not going to say PHP is the greatest language every invented, and in fact I am a huge fan of Python. But I do not think PHP deserves the "In a good language..." treatment. It is a language that is getting better everyday, with a strong and vibrant development community and massive user adoption. It is a good language.
2 comments
jessedhillon 5512 days ago
Sorry, I have to disagree with you.

A language whose maintainers decided that, in the fifth major release, `goto` needed to be added is not getting better. Nor is one whose maintainers rationalize the choice of backslash as a third, distinct scope resolution operator -- instance-attribute, class-attribute, and now namespace-member.

The sheer number of fails with PHP warrants the 'good language' treatment. The fact that,

  08 === 0
alone is enough to make it deserving of this treatment.
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ooh456 5513 days ago
amen. nobody chooses to use php on new projects but at least it's easy, fast, and pays the bills.
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harisenbon 5513 days ago
Really? I choose it every time I have a choice.

Especially with a Rails-like framework like CakePHP, I find that my programing time is lessened dramatically because of the framework, and my processing time is much lower than Rails because most of the servers I work on are optimized out the wazoo for PHP instead of Ruby.

But your mileage may vary.

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