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by j_col 5095 days ago
> ...badly designed...

> ...and has a million bugs...

> ...cannot be fixed...

> Pestering a language like that is only fair.

> ...who has yet to take that dark path

Wow that's a lot of emotive language. Like the man said, witch hunt.
2 comments
josteink 5095 days ago
While I agree lots of that is emotive, it is hard to argue against the truth in 1. badly designed, 2. bugs, and 3. which cannot be fixed without breaking most PHP code.

The rest follows naturally. Anyway: Have an upvote for objectively dissecting my semi-objective analysis.

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gouranga 5095 days ago
If someone started again and fixed those issues, would it rock?
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josteink 5094 days ago
Would it rock? Nah. It would merely make it less horrible. It lacks fundamental elegance and it lacks advanced capabilities. Even if fixed, it would still only be clinging to the crown of mediocracy.

But that is fine. Not all languages can or should be mind bending or define its own paradigm. So yeah, if all its problems was somehow in all unlikelyness fixed, it would be fine. It would be fine, but it would in no way "rock".

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flatline3 5095 days ago
It would be a completely different language.
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gouranga 5095 days ago
Yes I realise that
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slurgfest 5095 days ago
In that case, why not just use any of the existing developed alternatives rather than developing an entire new PHP replacement from scratch?
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gouranga 5094 days ago
Because the alternatives suck in different ways.
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mikeash 5094 days ago
Yep, there's no need for language like that when dispassionate facts can get the point across just as well:

1. PHP contains a bug which makes class and function names containing certain letters, like I, fail when the code is run in certain locales.

2. This bug has been open for ten years and has not been fixed. It's not likely to ever be fixed.

3. Many similar bugs exist in the code base, due to the PHP team's approach to language design.

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