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by TheAnimus 4743 days ago
>Sorry, but you obviously have not been taking notice over the past year or two.

I'll admit, I haven't really, because I'll turn it round, why would I?

We've seen Erlang start to be used quite a lot, Scala is becoming very interesting, and F# is appearing suitably mainstreme.

What features would make me think "hmm, I should check out what they are doing in PHP"?

Looking now I still see a cluttered array of APIs, some pretending they are C from the 80s, others hinting that they at least knew of objects in their design.

A quick look for static analysis rule systems for say our CI system: http://mark-story.com/posts/view/static-analysis-tools-for-p...

Wow, that's pretty poor.

What I do again see, are PHP developers who are not fluent in any other language. I always find that odd. For instance I've been doing mostly C# since version 2. But I would probably pass most Java or CamL interview questions anyone had. I am happy in C# knowing what I am missing from other languages (well, not happy, just its the right choice for the things I've been doing).

In short, PHP has an image problem with plenty of people. I am one of them. They can't easily solve it, without breaking a whole bunch of existing code, as most of my complaints are inherent languages features and core API design (or lack there off). I don't nock languages that eschew OO, but I do nock ones that implement it, just very, very badly.

2 comments

>We've seen Erlang start to be used quite a lot, Scala is becoming very interesting, and F# is appearing suitably mainstream

Your definition of mainstream must differ from the dictionary's.

>Your definition of mainstream must differ from the dictionary's.

I have got the same two agents constantly bugging me "oh you know some Erlang right?" at the moment, but the only one that I begin to describe as mainstream is F#.

If your in any kind of LOB space which deals with 'Maths' F# is rampant now. Which is handy for me, as I used to instruct labs on OCaml at uni.

Just using www.inqjobs.co.uk looking in London for contract rates on 500pd+ I find over 20 roles for F#. Compare that to the Python or Ruby number.

That to me, is mainstream. Not quite Java/C++/C# league, but certainly out there.

My biggest problem with PHP is that I was never able to find a good framework for it. After I found Laravel I started liking it a lot more.