What in the heck is PHP?!

[bipper]

Here's why PHP is awesome. This is a simple select box:...

PHP really is a horrible language. Horrible horrible horrible. register_globals, anyone? magic_quotes, anyone?

Customizable php.ini for the win. Better than regedit hacks for IIS.

PHP encourages mixing interface with application logic, which is entirely the wrong thing to do.

This can also be a necessity for one of PHP's primary reasons of existance, inline scripting and KISS approach, really.

PHP4's OO system is almost worse than Perl's, and that's saying something.

This is why PHP 5 was made. It is a growing language More than I can say for its competition.

PHP lacks any kind of consistency in the standard API function names and argument ordering and what have you. It's way too verbose a language for things that should be concise. (Who ever decided to have array() be the way to represent an array literal?) Its references sucks. Its function pointers / "callbacks" suck. It's scoping rules (or lack thereof) generally suck. Lack of namespaces sucks. Lack of exception handling sucks. Implicitly auto-casting strings to numerals and vice versa sucks. Confounding hash tables and plain arrays sucks. Lack of concise syntax for regular expressions sucks in a language specifically intended for what's essentially text processing and template manipulation. Etc. etc. PHP5 probably fixed a lot of this but I doubt I can stomach it long enough to find out.

yeah, a lot of these were addressed, though a lot of things were not. Well, my chief complain is the hybrid approach to the language - that it gains influence from every known language to man (exaggerated, but still). Otherwise, with some knowledge of the system, a few tweaks, and some patience PHP can easily set up one of the greatest server side scripting environments out there. I say almost since I obviously have not used every language.

PHP is a good language if 1) you need to learn it because you bought a vbulletin license or need to write a plugin for the PHP-based blog software you use, 2) Your program is 3 pages of code and has no chance to grow, 3) You have no access to your server to install anything better, 4) You don't know anything else and don't want to learn, 5) well, there is no 5, those are about the only reasons I can come up with. PHP is better than writing a hundred pages of HTML by hand, but only just barely. Sorry for the rant, but every time I'm forced to look at PHP code I want to hold my breath until I die.

Ruby on the other hand...

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'date'

puts '<select>'
(Date.parse('January 1st, 2007') .. Date.parse('December 31st, 2007')).each do |d|
  puts '<option>' + d.strftime('%B %d') + '</option>'
end
puts '</select>'

(I wouldn't touch ASP with a 10-foot pole if you paid me.)

fairly accurate. I have yet to completely play with ruby on rails. Half the power of PHP lies in it's simplicity, which directly contradicts its security assets, but w/3. I have a few two year old books on ruby, and did start playing with it - but I got sidetracked by something of no consequence... but yeah. I don't think your novice can pick it up and run with it. IT was a lot of fun though... I think. Perhaps I was playing p-knuckle with some train robbing Pokemon. I can't remember.