[vectorpush]

> I've talked to people doing large-scale deployments in PHP that complain about things like memory-leaks, etc in the language

What does it mean for a language to have memory leaks? Are you talking about a problem specific to the PHP runtime or common PHP idioms that lead to leaky code? A specific example would be helpful as I've never known PHP to be particularly vulnerable to memory-leak bugs (at least not any more than any of the other popular imperative scripting languages).

Also, what's the substance behind the "etc" in your comment? I'm not really sure what naturally follows in the sequence of "memory-leaks and so on...."

Your comment seems to simply cast doubt without much substance.

[xorcist]

PHP the runtime was built with a reload on every page load in mind, so a lot of cleaning up simply didn't need to happen. If it's in the runtime or how it's used doesn't matter.

It was a big deal when transitioning to the FPM runtime. That's why persistent PHP runtimes like FPM still have the option to completely reinitialize itself after a set number of pageviews. It's a bit like fixing leaks by rebooting, but it's fast enough not to be noticeable.

[scott_karana]

Admittedly, the "restart server process after N connections" method of dealing with memory leaks is not specific to just PHP.

It's also present in Apache, and thus mod_rails and mod_wsgi, by default[1], is an option in Gunicorn[2], and a gem is also available to provide the same in Unicorn.[3]

1 http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mpm_common.html#maxrequ...

2 http://gunicorn-docs.readthedocs.org/en/latest/settings.html...

3 https://github.com/kzk/unicorn-worker-killer

[pyre]

> What does it mean for a language to have memory leaks?

I'm not embroiled in the PHP-world, so I don't know how many alternate PHP runtimes exist, but I presume that the default PHP runtime itself was being referenced. Seeing as for a long time there was a single runtime paired with the language (I'm 99% sure that PHP4 didn't have alternate runtimes), I think that equating bugs in the runtime with bugs in the language is something that happens even if technically they are separate things.

> Your comment seems to simply cast doubt without much substance.

And your comment seems needlessly defensive. I made a comment about general sentiment that I've gotten from people that have actual working knowledge of large-scale PHP deployments. I'm sorry that in the middle of the conversation I didn't start immediately interrogating these people asking why they haven't filed bug reports if there are memory leaks.

Also, is it devoid of substance if I'm basically stating that I've talked to people "in the trenches" (and presumably know what they are talking about) who don't have the opinion that PHP is some beautiful, but misunderstood language that gets a bad rap?

> Also, what's the substance behind the "etc" in your comment? I'm not really sure what naturally follows in the sequence of "memory-leaks and so on...."

Maybe I should have phrased that as "(e.g. memory leaks)" to show that memory leaks weren't the only complaint, but my memory fails me on what the other complaints were.

[debaserab2]

I'd say writing off an entire language with a vague anecdote is worth at least a little scrutiny or clarification.

[drivingmenuts]

People have been doing that with PHP for years.

Yes, it's true that there's a ton of really bad code out there. But that's a measure of it's popularity.

There's also a ton of bad C and Java out there.

And yet, no one dismisses those languages because of that.

[wwweston]

As far as I can tell, anecdotes, social proof, and familiarity play far more a role in the reputations of almost every language/tool than most engineers seem prepared to admit.

(But don't worry, dear reader -- you're probably the exception!)

PHP gets singled out for a bit of extra abuse (some perhaps justifiably, some not so much), but it's far from the only language whose popular conception is not so much based on thoughtful evaluation.

[vectorpush]

> I'm not embroiled in the PHP-world, so I don't know how many alternate PHP runtimes exist, but I presume that the default PHP runtime itself was being referenced.

So are you talking about the default PHP 4 runtime or the default PHP 5.3 runtime or the default PHP 5.4 runtime etc? These versions are very different beasts, so levying a vague "memory leak" criticism at PHP without substantiating it via code or even a version makes the criticism pretty meaningless.

> I think that equating bugs in the runtime with bugs in the language is something that happens even if technically they are separate things.

I asked for clarification because I was unsure what you were referring to. For example, about a month ago I was tasked with debugging a memory leak in a legacy Ruby application where I eventually discovered that the developer had used a proc in such a way that it prevented the GC from freeing variables that had been referenced in the closure. It was an issue somewhat similar to the examples described in this blog post:

http://victorarias.com.br/2013/08/13/leaky-ruby.html

I wouldn't attribute this memory leak to the Ruby langauge but more to a Ruby idiom that developers should take care to avoid. That's the type of clarification I'm looking for, but it appears that you don't really have anything to offer the discussion in this regard.

> And your comment seems needlessly defensive. I made a comment about general sentiment that I've gotten from people that have actual working knowledge of large-scale PHP deployments. I'm sorry that in the middle of the conversation I didn't start immediately interrogating these people asking why they haven't filed bug reports if there are memory leaks.

I have no emotions tied up in this discussion, I'm trying to make a point that your criticism is just anecdotal hearsay without any way for someone to verify if what you're saying is actually true. I didn't suggest that you ask your colleagues to file bug reports, I was simply pressing you for more details since your vague anecdote runs counter to my own experiences with PHP as I relate it to the rest of the imperative scripting landscape.

> Also, is it devoid of substance if I'm basically stating that I've talked to people "in the trenches" (and presumably know what they are talking about) who don't have the opinion that PHP is some beautiful, but misunderstood language that gets a bad rap

Yes, that is pretty much the definition of "devoid of substance". "In the trenches" is a subjective description that doesn't mean anything. You presume they know what they're talking about, but maybe they actually don't, but we'll never know either way because all you've done is recount nebulous secondhand generalizations. You're not even asking me to take your word for it, you're asking me to take your word for their word. Can't you see why that's a little dubious?