[varikin]

The problem is not that "two different dudes implemented it. At different times. Probably, from different continents. They didn't notice it at the time". Is is that it was allowed to be added to the core library without it being questioned and fixed before it was too late to fix for compatibility reasons. That is the ultimate problem. I would rather a language or framework or library move slowly and correctly than add things haphazardly.

[maratd]

You're not getting what I'm saying. Even if you are super careful, mistakes will be made. What's important is how you deal will them once they're there.

PHP chooses to be ugly, over shafting its user-base by deprecating shit left and right. I like that. It tells me I can use it in a production setting.

[varikin]

I do understand what you are saying though for the same reason, it makes me not want to use PHP in a production setting. The fact that the core developers are willing to add things without thinking them through forcing the users to deal with problems that can't be fixed so as to not break existing sites concerns me.

[wvenable]

The thing is, these functions were added a long time ago when the language and the project itself was in it's infancy. It's purpose and audience was different. I doubt anyone developing at the time expected it to last this long and be used by this many people. The goal was to put in as much functionality as possible to be useful. It was web scripting for C programmers.

The problem with a language that moves slowly is that if there's an opportunity, it might just miss it. I was working in PHP in the early days and every release brought features you wanted to use yesterday. Perhaps if PHP didn't have the huge rate of change it did then maybe it would have never caught on. Python is several years older than PHP and yet it didn't come to web until long after.