Why PHP sucks

NOTE: This is a restored version from this archive.

Edmin Martin wrote Why PHP sucks.

At work I’ve built an Apache 2.0 setup with both PHP and mod_python support. We are progressively stopping our developments in PHP and switching them to Python. Of course in the past I’ve been developing in Java ; but for quick developments nothing beats scripting languages. Anyway, I’ve been quickly convinced that PHP is a pretty awful language, except for two things :

• There is an enormous PHP support from hosting providers.
• There is an enormous PHP community which means that some pretty good projects emerge (such as DotClear).

The combination of these two parameters enabled me to deploy my own blog on DotClear on a pretty cheap hosting provider. It would have been much more difficult to obtain the same service with Java or Python code.

So yes, PHP is a crappy language, but as a platform, it is pretty useful. I wish Python had a more established web platform, but the proliferation of web frameworks is preventing the emergence of a clear Python platform. Maybe WSGI (AKA PEP333) will change this ?