[GRLUG] sysadmin job opening

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Mon, 2010-02-01 at 10:02 -0600, L. V. Lammert wrote:
> At 10:43 AM 2/1/2010 -0500, you wrote:
> >Etc.  Leading to the question,  if PHP is so bad, why is it so prominently 
> >used?  Why are so many willingly using garbage?  Or,why is it that some 
> >think it's good?
> >So why PHP?  Is there something unique that only it does?  

Two words: Install base.  It does nothing unique and nothing especially
well.

PHP was the first of its kind, which led to a large installed [user]
population.

> Or is it maybe 
> >that finding  people that know something about it is easier than finding 
> >people who know something about a better approach?
> Many reasons:
> 1) It runs on all web platforms, even, gasp, Windoze;

As does .NET, Perl, Java, and Python.

> 2) It requires no overhead (i.e. no compiler like C or assembly, 
> no module  files like CPAN

False.  PEAR and PECL modules often require external components,  PECL
modules even requires a compiler to build and install.

> , no external library modules for the base install, ..).

False.  PEAR and PECL modules often require external components,

All but the most trivial applications will required modules whether that
is for image manipulation, crypto, databases other than MySQL, ...

> 3) The syntax is fairly simple, and close enough to C for a newbie to use 
> previous programming knowledge.

How many PHP developers were previously C developers?  I doubt that is
significant.  I also doubt if this is even true - there is a huge
difference between PHP and C.

> et al
> PHP is not bad in itself,

Yes, it really is.  I'm not talking about the "language", I'm talking
about the implementation.
<http://shinobu.grlug.org/pipermail/grlug/2010-January/006984.html>

>  *some* projects or implementations are just known 
> to be poorly maintained or badly designed; if there IS a problem with PHP, 
> it's that there is no structure to force good programming practices.

False.  The implementation is bad.