starshipeleven in my own experience, Java BC between versions has always been, regardless of the promises of Sun/Oracle/$vendor, much, much worse than PHP's. Which was always an ironic twist on the 'enterprise-readyness' of software as marketed by its creators...
No chance in hell that one could ever get two biggish apps from separate vendors to run on the same JRE. and I'm not even talking about custom-developed-code here, but about commercially available software.
It is not a mystery that this was eminently resolved by having each java app ship with its own JRE/JDK bundled in - this happens up to this day (eg. with phpstorm, my favourite php ide, which is written in java).
In php-land the trend has become, instead of bundling the php interpreter within each app, to bundle the whole server, ie. run apps in containers.
Is that much different?
As for permissive languages allowing more bad code to be written: I might agree or not. PHP is not chosen for it's ability to force users to write safe code. It is generally chosen because it makes developers orders of magnitude more productive than C and Java (anecdotal experience here, but I am sure there are stats out there corroborating this).
Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
PHP 7.4 Released With FFI, Typed Properties, Arrow Functions, Better Performance
Collapse
X
-
Originally posted by starshipeleven View PostTools do play a significant part. This isn't art.
But still, if the language quality was higher it would not be as bad as no matter how noob you are, if the language does not allow something you aren't going to do it.
With the level of verbosity and restraint a language like Java imposes, plus the fact it's full-object from A to Z, it's *very* easy to create uncomprehensible mess of classes because striking the perfect balance between granularity and simplicity is hard (and also people may have different target points from one another which doesn't help if there is no regular discussion ^^).
As for tools... Yeah, they do play a significant part. But they are still overall irrelevant as to the final quality.
PHP like other languages has several tools for testing... But in PHP as in Java, nobody puts a gun on developer's head to ensure they write tests for code (or even simply that they write testable code).
PHP like others has IDEs to help, but no tool will ever force you to follow a logical and coherent structure and nomenclature for the functional features you make.
I'll largely prefer a program written by a good developer, without any tool, in PHP, than a program written by a newbie developer in Java even if you give him the best preconfigured Eclipse or similar.
Because tools only carry you so far. They cannot decide all the really important things for you, just help you deal quicker with many little things *you would have taken care of anyways IF you're a good developer*.
Java is slightly harder to mess with because the compilers can point out the most blatant errors. It won't help much if your code is impossible to understand by anyone else, or if your code works but is so sluggish it's effectively useless to end-users.Last edited by Citan; 29 November 2019, 10:31 AM.
- Likes 1
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Citan View PostWhatever efficient or not a tool may be, it's the mind behind that makes the quality of a project.
The main flaw of PHP is that because it's permissive by default it's easier for a badly lazy developer to write awful code.
The problem is that it isn't C, so you aren't trading off this dangerous nature for extreme speed.
if you have relational problems with your colleagues, the cause may rather be found by looking at a mirror.
The funny thing is, it has nothing to do with language quality.
It just so happens that PHP is the most popular languages since years
But still, if the language quality was higher it would not be as bad as no matter how noob you are, if the language does not allow something you aren't going to do it.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by royce View PostLet me put it this way. Your job is there because the company has developers writing software, and not the other way around. But is by no means necessary.
A lot places I've worked at over the years have done away with sysadmins entirely, and some of them have indeed gone further and work 100% serverlessly.
"serverlessly" is the bullshit jargon to impress sheeple, you are using cloud infrastructure and someone is managing it and providing support if you can't get it to run your stuff.
It's better than dedicated or hosted servers though, as there at least the client can't just come and ask for bullshit runtime versions or custom hacks to workaround their software's shortfalls. You have runtimes at version X, Y or Z, chosen at the start, your application does not work with them? You need a custom hack to restart some service that breaks regularly every X time? Well that's a damn shame, but it's not my problem because your app is in a read-only container and not in a true OS. Now go fix it, chop chop.
If you think this means less sysadmins, think again. This just means you have less sysadmins per application or per server. The amount of applications with this model has exploded.
These aren't frameworks, but CMS systems.
A wordpress developer is not a PHP developer,
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Spam View PostIsn't the problem poorly written apps? I.e. they have used non standard ways to do stuff? Did PHP really deprecate that much between versions?
- Likes 1
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by starshipeleven View PostYeah sure, more developer elitism bullshit. "enable developers to do their stuff" like I'm a fucking janitor.
as it is with shit like Joomla or Wordpress.
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by starshipeleven View PostI second this. PHP is just bad, there is no excuse for those that keep using it for their software.
Whatever efficient or not a tool may be, it's the mind behind that makes the quality of a project.
The main flaw of PHP is that because it's permissive by default it's easier for a badly lazey developer to write awful code.
It also (for now) still has some limitations compared to others, (big one being inferior polymorphism compared to Java) but it perfectly allows you to write maintanable, secure and performant web apps.
Also, you're right, sysadmin are much more than "janitors" and I disapprove of the mindset some devs have that "sysadmin is easy, dev is the true skillzz" because it's just wrong.
With that said, I'd hazard that if you have relational problems with your colleagues, the cause may rather be found by looking at a mirror.
Originally posted by starshipeleven View PostTypical myopical self-centered view of developers. You never realize that who makes your shitty applications actually work in the field is someone else.
I'm a sysadmin, I don't get to choose what crap the clients want to install in the servers, so yes I'm entitled to hate on the language and all its users indiscriminately and whine profusely about it on forums.
The self-center is not necessarily where you think it is.
Last edited by Citan; 29 November 2019, 06:38 AM.
- Likes 1
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by Spam View PostIsn't the problem poorly written apps? I.e. they have used non standard ways to do stuff? Did PHP really deprecate that much between versions?
Or so it seems to me, given the type of issues they face when deployed (for example, at least twice a year some new custom software I load on a server breaks after some use, I get into troubleshooting and I find out that they can't deal with names or paths with spaces, which is quite frankly a bit concerning for something that was written in 2019, I don't even want to know if they sanitize their inputs)
But this is a constant, regardless of the language. People developing in Java or C# aren't fundamentally different from PHP developers, nor the applications do different things, yet I get less issues.
Which is why the language is a factor.
The language puts down rails and rules and features that help the developer. The more they can shoot themselves in the foot the more they will.
Apparently PHP is the worse of the bunch in the languages of choice. Java runs like garbage but it does not cause so much issues. Yeah it did break functionality when updating major VM versions, yeah I still despise it for a bunch of reasons, but it is not as bad as PHP applications are.
EDIT: Full disclosure: Most of these applications aren't pubblic, they are for internal company use or offered as a service to client companies, so many things that would be completely unacceptable in a public application/website/service will be mitigated with user training of course.Last edited by starshipeleven; 29 November 2019, 06:11 AM.
- Likes 1
Leave a comment:
-
Isn't the problem poorly written apps? I.e. they have used non standard ways to do stuff? Did PHP really deprecate that much between versions?
- Likes 1
Leave a comment:
-
Originally posted by royce View PostYou realise that as a sysadmin, your job is to enable developers to do their stuff and that in no way qualifies you with enough knowledge to critique their choices in languages and tooling, to which they're experts and you are not, right?
If something on the server "breaks" (i.e. the service stops or has issues) I'm the first one that is called (me or whoever else is on watch), and I'm also the one responsible to troubleshoot the issue and decide if it is a system/server/network issue or an application issue, and then open a ticket to the software company's tech support.
I'm also responsible of setting up the server to run multiple applications on the same server (as required, sometimes there isn't just 1 backend), and that's always fun when you have 3 different PHP versions because each application blows up if I try to use the same version for all.
And of course I'm the one that has to come, nuke from the orbit and restore the server from backup when the PHP framework vulnerability of the week has let someone in and the server CPU is now 100% and mining Bitcoins or some shit. This is NOT common for Java, Python or C#/.net backends. It can happen, sure, but it's not as obvious or as "normal" as it is with shit like Joomla or Wordpress.
- Likes 1
Leave a comment:
Leave a comment: