[Corrado]

I think it is fair to contrast PHP with RoR or Django, because it was built specifically for generating HTML. Ruby and Python are general purpose languages that do many more things than generate web pages. No one writes iOS apps in PHP but they do in RubyMotion. No one writes high performance Math routines in PHP but they do in Python.

[dham]

This is my biggest gripe. PHP just does one thing. You can't really use it for much more then building web pages. Yes, you can use it for scripting but Ruby and Python are much better at this.

You have things like Rubymotion(to build iOS and Mac apps), which I'm really liking. Opal which translates Ruby to Javascript. You can build Android apps with Ruboto. You can run Ruby the JVM and call Java libraries. You can run Ruby on the .NET runtime(Iron Ruby). You have a really good Web framework called Rails. Most other PHP frameworks just copy Rails, so why not just use the source. You can build games for iOS using Joybox(library for Rubymotion).

So from a business prospective we chose Ruby because we can do pretty much everything in Ruby. We rarely have to use anything else. From command line applications, to web, to iOS, to Android, to reporting, etc.

PHP, well, you can output HTML, or JSON.

[Killswitch]

> Most other PHP frameworks just copy Rails, so why not just use the source.

I can't speak for anyone else but for myself regarding this but here we go. I have 12 years experience with PHP, it's my primary language, I know it's got pros and cons, I accept it for what it is and work around it. I know Python is better in terms of standards in languages. I know PHP started out as just a few tools and morphed into a language. But here's what's keeping me from switching to Python or Ruby, or heck even Node.js.. Experience...

Yes I can learn a new language basics pretty easily, but am I gonna be able to write a complete app in say RoR with very few google searches or even looking at the manual as fast as I can in PHP? No... I have been playing around with node.js for 2 years now, long enough to know it pretty well, and yet I can still code circles around node.js with PHP.. 12 years using this language as a primary, it'd take me at LEAST 4 years to even get close to the scale of how well I can code in PHP.

It's just not feasible for me to just up and leave PHP for something "better" based on a few cons and other peoples opinions.

[dham]

I think PHP is good for some stuff definitely, and if you know it then by all means use it.

> Yes I can learn a new language basics pretty easily, but am I gonna be able to write a complete app in say RoR with very few google searches or even looking at the manual as fast as I can in PHP

That's debatable. I saw someone finish and sell a property management web app in Rails, without knowing Ruby and next to no knowledge of Rails. I wouldn't recommend it. Rails just gives you a lot of things for free. This is getting to much into a framework vs language thing, which I don't like.

I was just making a case for Ruby as opposed to PHP, especially if your job involves more then just web stuff.

As far as PHP frameworks copying Rails, I'm pretty sure that's just accepted as fact. If you don't use frameworks then that's cool.

[krapp]

PHP is only meant to do that one thing. It's not really fair to gripe about it not serving a purpose it was never meant to serve.

[dham]

Same could be said about Ruby. PHP and Ruby are both "General purpose programming languages". I'm not sure Matz saw creating iOS apps when he created Ruby in 1995. Sure it's not fair to gripe about the language. It's not the languages fault, you can only do one thing with it, it's the communities.