Why is PHP bad

[jacobpratt909]

I find it great how people are responding about how "fabulous" PHP is when you pointed out the phrase

Now imagine you meet millions of carpenters using this toolbox who tell you “well hey what’s the problem with these tools? They’re all I’ve ever used and they work fine!” And the carpenters show you the houses they’ve built, where every room is a pentagon and the roof is upside-down. And you knock on the front door and it just collapses inwards and they all yell at you for breaking their door.

It just makes me laugh harder xD

-Wyz

[aysiu]

Speaking as someone for whom programming doesn't come naturally, I love PHP. I'm probably one of those "newbies" making mistakes all the time, but I'm really trying my best to do things efficiently and, when interfacing with MySQL to use prepared statements and validate input before shoving it into the database. I'm trying to learn Python now on CodeAcademy, and that's fine... but PHP just makes more sense to me, for some reason. A simple example is being able to plop a bunch of variables inline with text without having to put in %s placeholders.

[Dragonbite]

I prefer PHP over ASP.NET.

Annoyingly, the best PHP IDE I have used is strangely from Micorosft; WebMatrix 3.

[nilla78ro]

It is not bad at all, I'm java programmer but i'm using php for my personal web sites. I don't have too much time for my personal projects and on php is enough to change / upload the file to have the change up and running.
In my opinion the php looks ugly beacuse we don't have any good IDE like other languages (I'm using Netbeans).
So, php is not bad at all.

[Dragonbite]

It is not bad at all, I'm java programmer but i'm using php for my personal web sites. I don't have too much time for my personal projects and on php is enough to change / upload the file to have the change up and running.
In my opinion the php looks ugly beacuse we don't have any good IDE like other languages (I'm using Netbeans).
So, php is not bad at all.

Netbeans has a PHP plug-in, but not sure how much better that is than gEdit with the file listing on the side.

But I agree, Linux needs a good (preferably non-Java based) open source PHP editor. Maybe even one that integrates a web server back-end for debugging (without having to run a web server all of the time or go through manually installing/scripting and running the server components).

[Bimasena_Putra]

For me PHP is easy to use, it's my favorite

[Sasha_Aderolop]

1. Bad recursion
2. Many PHP-modules are not thread safe
3. PHP is crippled for commercial reasons
4. No namespaces
5. Non-standard date format characters
6. Confusing licenses
7. Inconsequent function naming convention
8. Magic quotes hell
9. Framework seldom used

[SeijiSensei]

1. Bad recursion.

PHP applications rarely need recursion at all.

2. Many PHP-modules are not thread safe

Which ones? There are dozens. Does this include the most common modules for things like MySQL, PostgreSQL, mcrypt, IMAP, etc.? Or does it apply mostly to less-common and less well-supported modules?

3. PHP is crippled for commercial reasons

Evidence? What does "crippled" mean? Are you talking about the relationship with Zend? How has that "crippled" PHP?

4. No namespaces

And the consequences of that are?

5. Non-standard date format characters

True, but you get used to it, or you just bookmark the documentation page for date() as I did.

6. Confusing licenses

Examples? The main codebase uses a BSD-style license. Some modules may have different licenses if they interface with commercial products, I suppose. I don't see anyone objecting to distributing PHP on open-source platforms. If the licenses were more restrictive, Debian wouldn't support it.

7. Inconsequent function naming convention

I find the naming less important than the inconsistencies in argument order.

8. Magic quotes hell

Who uses magic quotes? I gave up on that long ago and wrote a class of functions to handle transactions with the database. The functions add quotes when needed. Magic quotes was always a kludge that anyone with much PHP experience knows to avoid.

9. Framework seldom used

I don't know what this means.