[dageshi]

It isn't inherently broken, if it were inherently broken nobody would be using it, which is quite obviously not the case.

From my point of view, ruby, python all the rest are inherently broken because nobody makes any damned products from them which aren't used by other programmers or sold as a service.

You don't need to be a programmer to use Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB and the endless list of customer facing, customer usable PHP apps. You don't need to be a programmer to configure their environments and get them running. You don't need to be a programmer to extend them, you just need to find the right plugin/module to suit your needs.

I cannot think of any other web based language that even comes close in this regard. Why is that? If these languages are so good, why is no one making any software with them that ordinary people and not programmers can actually use?

[dragonwriter]

> From my point of view, ruby, python all the rest are inherently broken because nobody makes any damned products from them which aren't used by other programmers or sold as a service.

Even assuming that this is true (which its not, but we'll get to that later on) How does this matter? And, particularly, how is "sold as a service" an issue?

> You don't need to be a programmer to use Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB and the endless list of customer facing, customer usable PHP apps. ou don't need to be a programmer to configure their environments and get them running. You don't need to be a programmer to extend them, you just need to find the right plugin/module to suit your needs.

How is this different from Plone or any of the other CMS, blogging, and discussion platforms built in Python, Ruby, and other non-PHP languages, that likewise are designed to be installed and configured by non-programmers and which are extensible via plugin/module systems?

> I cannot think of any other web based language that even comes close in this regard.

What is a "web based language"? But I suspect the reason you can't think of any other language has nothing to do with what is actually true of other languages, and more about you.

> If these languages are so good, why is no one making any software with them that ordinary people and not programmers can actually use?

Software that is successfully sold as a service to ordinary people is software that ordinary people and not programmers can actually use. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sales.

As are a lot of other things you seem unaware of built with non-PHP languages.

[shocks]

You comment is very condescending. You should not be trying to infer from the parent comment that dageshi is some kind of naive newby programmer who doesn't understand.

dageshi made some valid comments about the role PHP fills and you dismissed them and instead focused on calling him/her out for being a bad/poor programmer.

[danbruc]

Besides the language of the comment all his points are valid.

It isn't inherently broken, if it were inherently broken nobody would be using it, which is quite obviously not the case.

The language is broken. JavaScript, too. Both are used because there are no alternatives. There are obviously alternatives for PHP but these seem to fall so far behind in ease of use that they don't gain enough traction. Therefore I argue we need a new language - easy to use as PHP but without all the flaws of it.

From my point of view, ruby, python all the rest are inherently broken because nobody makes any damned products from them which aren't used by other programmers or sold as a service.

I am no web developer and my knowledge of commonly used web frameworks and who uses what is really limited but it seems reasonable to assume this statement is wrong.

I did a quick search and the first hit was Django build on top of Python used by Instagram and Pinterest. [1] There may be more PHP based apps out there because it is so easy to use but it is definitely not true that no one uses alternatives.

You don't need to be a programmer to use Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB and the endless list of customer facing, customer usable PHP apps. You don't need to be a programmer to configure their environments and get them running. You don't need to be a programmer to extend them, you just need to find the right plugin/module to suit your needs.

When you use a product that only requires setup, configuration and throwing in some plug-ins it does not matter at all which language has been used to build that product. This statement is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

I cannot think of any other web based language that even comes close in this regard. Why is that? If these languages are so good, why is no one making any software with them that ordinary people and not programmers can actually use?

Again, my personal guess is that the ease of (ab)use of PHP outweighs - or at least seems to do so - the advantages of »better« languages.

[1] http://www.fiveq.com/blog/programming/building-django-good-c...

[dragonwriter]

> You comment is very condescending.

I am asking serious questions. If that seems condescending to you, well, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

> You should not be trying to infer from the parent comment that dageshi is some kind of naive newby programmer who doesn't understand.

I was neither inferring nor "try to infer" that. I was questioning specific comments and pointing to specific examples of why I thought the generalizations being made were incorrect.

> dageshi made some valid comments about the role PHP fills

What were made were sweeping generalities about the superiority of PHP being evidenced by it being used in areas that Python and other languages are not, that evidenced unclear and apparently inconsistent standards as well as failure to consider Python and other non-PHP products that do, in fact, exist in the roles in which it was asserted that PHP was the only language actually being used.

> you dismissed them and instead focused on calling him/her out for being a bad/poor programmer.

Nowhere in my comment did I call anyone a bad/poor programmer. I don't mind reasonable criticism of things that I write, but I'd prefer if you didn't invent things that I never wrote and then criticize me for writing them.

[justin66]

> if it were inherently broken nobody would be using it

Is there some field of human endeavor where you've observed this statement to always hold true?