What do you like/dislike about PHP?

[CS Geek]

Write down things you like about PHP and things you do not like.

[AnthonySterling]

No.

[ScallioXTX]

I like what I like and dislike what I dislike.
I like a whole lot and there isn't much I dislike about PHP.

[CS Geek]

I like the flexibility in PHP.


I dislike the fact that there is not a professional IDE for PHP.
I dislike Zend.

[ScallioXTX]

I dislike the fact that there is not a professional IDE for PHP.

There may not be an official IDE for PHP as such, but there are a lot of IDE's out there that support PHP

I dislike Zend.

Why?

[AnthonySterling]

I dislike the fact that there is not a professional IDE for PHP.

Maybe taking a look at either Eclipse PDT, PHP Storm or NetBeans may convince you otherwise. If you need something a little more 'hardcore', maybe VIM ?

[Raju Gautam]

I like everything so have to search what I dislike and IDE cannot be the reason disliking PHP.

[JREAM]

No.

haha.. mean..

--

I like php a lot.


But I dislike how some functions have underscores, and others don't:
strstr
str_replace
strtoupper
str_count

I wish print_r was printr because I hate typing that underscore! Or printarr.

I use Netbeans for IDE and its not fast enough with suggesting print_r as i type "pri", it delays like 1 or 2 seconds. Although the IDE is awesome and does everything I think I need, just little things like that are too slow in my opinion.

But these are little things I adapt to. They aren't a big deal.

I also dislike Zend Framework. Mainly the configuration files.

[CS Geek]

haha.. mean..

--

I like php a lot.


But I dislike how some functions have underscores, and others don't:
strstr
str_replace
strtoupper
str_count

I wish print_r was printr because I hate typing that underscore! Or printarr.

I use Netbeans for IDE and its not fast enough with suggesting print_r as i type "pri", it delays like 1 or 2 seconds. Although the IDE is awesome and does everything I think I need, just little things like that are too slow in my opinion.

But these are little things I adapt to. They aren't a big deal.

I also dislike Zend Framework. Mainly the configuration files.

I agree with you and the only thing I hate about PHP IDEs is the speed in which the intellisense appears especially with functions and vise versa. If I did not try Visual Studio I may not notice a big difference, but I tried it I found that the intellisense is amazing. I hope we will see a good IDE for PHP soon.

[lampcms.com]

It's easy to learn. Easier to write code than in Java or C++

Don't like: I think php already got quite a few things from Java, like almost all SPL classes are modeled after same concepts in Java. So what I like to see is more classes added to SPL that are common in Java but don't yet exist in php. For example Comparable interface, Comparator interface.
It would also be cool, but maybe too much of a change for php is every object would inherit from "Object" object. That Object object would have some minimal set of methods like hashCode(), __toString already built it.
One more improvement would be to improve the Serializable interface to use versionID, just like in Java. This would solve the problem when an object is serialized and stored in cache, then class definition changed (someone uploaded a new version of class) before the object is unserialized.

Adding multithreading is probably not a good idea for php, even though it would make the language more powerful, it would add something that most self-taught programmers will be getting wrong most of the time, ending up with very bad problems and blaming php for it.

Overall, I think current version of php is a good language for web development.
I like php more than Java and more than JavaScript, and a lot more that Perl

[Michael Morris]

No.

Don't feel like writing a book today?

I love PHP, but it has more than its share of warts.

[AnthonySterling]

Don't feel like writing a book today?

I don't feel like being told to write a book today.

[lphy]

I wish PHP support multi-threading like other OOP languages

[Ciwan]

I dislike the fact that it is so hard to run a php function on a click of a button !!

At the moment we're learning ASP.NET at Uni and it is soooooo easy to run a function based on a button click !

In PHP I have been trying to figure it out for the last couple of days .. and still no success

[Raffles]

It's not that hard. You submit your form, and then:

if ($_POST['clicky_button'] === 'clicky!') {
  some_function();
} 

[CS Geek]

I don't feel like being told to write a book today.

Sorry AnthonySterling.

Can you please tell us about your thoughts.

[CS Geek]

I dislike the fact that it is so hard to run a php function on a click of a button !!

At the moment we're learning ASP.NET at Uni and it is soooooo easy to run a function based on a button click !

In PHP I have been trying to figure it out for the last couple of days .. and still no success

In asp.net double cilck the button and you are good to go, right?

[goldfidget]

Like: Super easy in, Wordpress, ubiquitous, runs on a minimal server

Dislike: Lack of clearly defined standards and conventions means I often end up wading through poor quality code

[goldfidget]

It's not that hard. You submit your form, and then:

if ($_POST['clicky_button'] === 'clicky!') {
  some_function();
} 

Raffles way is actually way better. ASP hides quite a lot of important implementation details. It also maintains state by wrapping the whole page in a form, which pretty much sucks.

When I'm wearing my SEO hat, I spend quite a lot of time poking holes in ASP sites for things like using post data inappropriately.

IMO ASP is quite an advanced framework, you need to really know the basics of HTTP and HTML in order not to use it to do something dim

[CS Geek]

Raffles way is actually way better. ASP hides quite a lot of important implementation details. It also maintains state by wrapping the whole page in a form, which pretty much sucks.

When I'm wearing my SEO hat, I spend quite a lot of time tpoking holes in ASP sites for things like using post data inappropriately.

IMO ASP is quite an advanced framework, you need to really know the basics of HTTP and HTML in order not to use it to do something dim

Yeah I hate the view states in ASP.NET and sometimes I hate the server controls. The nice thing about PHP is that you build your own thing rather than resuse already built things. This could be a negative sometimes as it will lead you to write more code.

[Ciwan]

@CS Geek: Exactly ! Super Easy !

It's not that hard. You submit your form, and then:

if ($_POST['clicky_button'] === 'clicky!') {
  some_function();
} 

1) Someone told me I should use $_GET !
2) Does the code need placing in a different PHP file ? Or can it reside in the same file ?

EDIT: Sorry forgot the topic of this thread

[JREAM]

@CS Geek: Exactly ! Super Easy !



1) Someone told me I should use $_GET !
2) Does the code need placing in a different PHP file ? Or can it reside in the same file ?

EDIT: Sorry forgot the topic of this thread

If it's a form that's posting a value then use POST. If you are trying to get a URL parameter use GET, or you can just use REQUEST to do both and save time:

Use Get or Request (I prefer request): index.php?value=true&othervalue=false
Use Post or Request (I prefer post): <input type="text" name="hi" />

[Ciwan]

It is not a form and it is not a value from a URL.

It is a Simple Click on a Button. hehe See why I say ASP.NET is much easier when it comes to Button Clicks.

[CS Geek]

It is not a form and it is not a value from a URL.

It is a Simple Click on a Button. hehe See why I say ASP.NET is much easier when it comes to Button Clicks.

Ciwan, do you learn PHP at university as well or just ASP.NET? And which language you learn with ASP.NET is it C# or VB.NET?

[Ciwan]

No we don't sadly !! The Lecturers decided to teach us ASP.NET cause they say the Industry has higher demand for ASP.NET developers than they do PHP ones !!

That's what they told me ! Though I still want to learn PHP cause you can see everything. There is no hidden code ..etc Plus it is free in terms of servers ..etc

However when I get to stuff like button clicks and such .. I can definitely see the advantage of ASP.NET ... it is much easier to build a fully working application in ASP.NET (check out videos on their site) than it is in PHP I think !

True there will be a lot of generated code ..etc but if that code doesn't affect the speed (which I'm not sure if it does or not) .. then it's OK I guess LOL

The Lecturer is teaching us VB, however I always go with C# cause I learnt Java in my first year .. and C# is closer to Java than it is to VB.