RE: PHP on .NET DLR

K T Ligesh wrote:
> > Is every direction that affects somebody negative;y by 
> definition "A 
> > screw over?"  Sure seems that way.
> 
>  Isn't that the very definition of 'screwing over'. if I 
> spend my entire life getting adept at something, and then the 
> company just drops it, they are screwing me over. And please, 
> the termininology isn't mine. I think the VB6 programmers 
> explicity said that MS had fcked them in the *ss. This is a 
> verbatim statement in one of the early usenet posts, and a 
> point of extreme controversy in the VB community.

It is the definition for those whose world view is that they are at the
center of the world and measure everything by how it affects them without
accepting that life is life and others can and will do things that
negativity affect others and they have a right to do so.  And it's not
exactly a mature world view either, and it's literally unhealthly. Better to
take control of his own existence than to blame others for their situation.

>  You seem to be taking productivity very trivially. 

You seem to be putting words in my mouth.

> Change of 
> enviroment is not an easy thing to cope with. Haven't you 
> gone through all the rebellion that VB6 folks had raised 
> against the new VB.NET? 

I watched it with the same head0shaking that this thread is generating from
me.  I was a VB6er who say that VB.NET was worth the effort. (though I've
since moved on, for other reasons.)

> Now I have the 
> ability to sympathize with other people's plight even though 
> it doesn't directly affect me. 

Now that is ironic given my comment above!

>  And now with Powershell, it just got worse.

Come again?

>  I believe in building incredibly complex systems that can do 
> everthing. I really hate the cacaphony of a myriad small 
> systems all interacting haphazardly. 

Maybe you should read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar."  Or study "Swarm
Theory."   Monolithic systems can't achieve the scalability and
effectiveness of many small systems.

> > According to the book written by the PowerShell team lead, 
> Powershell 
> > is part Perl and part Python. It is not part C#.  And it 
> doesn't have 
> > those infernal semi-colons. '-)
> > 
> 
>  It HAS. If you want multiple command on the same line, you 
> use semi-colon.

WRONG!  I said  "And it doesn't have those *INFERNAL* semi-colons."
(emphasis added.)  You gave me an example of INTELLIGENTLY-USED semi-colons,
big difference.  In Powershell, semi-colons are used for the special case
when as part of deciding on code formatting a developer would not forget to
include the semi-colon. In the normal case with C-based languages
semi-colons are superfluous to understanding the logic and it's just
something annoying that causes continuous syntax errors and a real drag on
productivity.

>  Yeah. But there exists also a radically different approach 
> in the Desktop, which is also EQUALLY succesfull, and the 
> real reason why web is hot is that customer doesn't need to 
> download anything. 

The more you write, the more it is clear you have no real knowledge of web
architecture.  Before posting again on that topic, please at least read
"Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One"[1].  The fact "they don't
need to download anything" is far from being the only reason why the web has
been so successful.  As they say "It's the Architecture, stupid!" [2] :)

>  I think you should just give up. The Future is C. And for 
> good reasons. Programming shouldn't be descriptive. If anyone 
> wants descriptive languages, let them become an author and 
> write novels. 

Heh!  I'd challenge you to a bet for 10 years from now, but as with most
firmly-held ideologies you'll probably never acknowledge being wrong even
with evidence surrounding you so the bet would be futile.

>  But it is already there. Phalanger is already there. 
> The only thing is needed: Zend has to get MS adopt it. If 
> Phalanger didnt' exist, I wouldn't bother. I have many many 
> times repeated that the only reason why my request cannot be 
> deemed unreasonable is that Phalanger already exists in a 
> completed state, and I am currently using it to build 
> applications, but the project looks abandoned, and nobody is 
> answering any of my queries.

And I've repeatedly said "Quit moaning about it and run with it."  If you
can't take action on it, then it is not important enough so get over it.

>  If short sighted business decisions are what's going to 
> determine a language's roadmap, it is a really terrible 
> situation indeed. Language--at least to a real programmer 
> (tm)--is something very personal, and to be constrained like 
> this due to some miopic decisions, really makes you feel frustrated.

Your comments come across as that you are the only one qualified to make
business decisions.  That is rather condescending, isn't it?

>  The code is there. The only thing lacking is the official 
> stamp. Both from the PHP community and from MS. Tomas has 
> done an outstanding piece of work, but it got scuttled by MS. 
> Why do I have to repeat this again and again. the code is 
> already there. If it didn't, I am merely trying count the 
> clouds. But that's not so.

Microsoft pays atttention to developer interest. Show them interest (in the
form of code, not petitions, MS don't respect petitions [3])

>  MS financially supported Tomas and Lada when they were 
> working on phalanger. I don't think MS is the culprit here. 
> There is some reason why MS has dropped PHP, I am trying to 
> figure that out.

Because evidently few people (besides you) care about it.

>  I am talking about PHP on .NET, which is a server side 
> technology. Silverlight is a simple browser frontend for the 
> backend web application, similar to Ajax. PHP on .NET has no 
> disadvantage, and an implementation exists in a complete 
> form, and my request is that the community should take it seriously.

Because the new leader of the Phlanger project, move it forward, and maybe
the community will.

>  MS does engage in unethical business practices. That is yet 
> another thing in their favor. They will do anything to gain 
> the marketshare, and so when they are determined to the 
> server market, I am worried. If they were a bunch people who 
> played nice, I might be able to predict their plans, but with 
> MS, we have no clue. So that's yet another advantage in favor 
> Silverlight: the company behind it is a massive troll.

So you think Microsoft is unique in unethical behaviour?   If yes you
clearly haven't followed any of the other Fortune 1000...

Anyway, nature abhors a vacuum, there will be valid competition.


>  I would say you are the one who is nibbling at the quits. We 
> are talking of building applications. If it doesn't have 
> while loop, for loop, and if then, then it is not a language. Sorry.

So I guess SQL is not a language?  Nor Assembly?  Nor Lisp?  And I guess
Wikipedia [4] got it all wrong?

Jeesh, all these years I've just been deluded!  You know, I'm learning so
much from you, things the entire rest of the world must just have wrong.
What a revelation! <sic>

> Complexity is unavoidable. If it was simple, then there is 
> nothing has to do. That's a tautology actually. If it is 
> simple, then it would have been already done by some idiot. 
> The only tasks that are left are the complex ones. So 
> complexity will ultimately exist at some place. It is your 
> decistion to have it in code or pass it on to the user. My 
> preference is to have it in code, and make it easy for the user.

"Great programmers" focus on deriving simplicity from complexity, not
perpetuating complexity.  If it helps your self-esteem to think that you can
are better than "some idiot", more power to you, but don't hoist this
ideology on the rest of the world.

>  Can you write Silverlight in powershell? In that case, I 
> think I will stop wasting time here, and learn Powershell 
> better. Powershell is pure C with $s.

There you go again with the false dichotomies.

> When there are competing languages, every feature counts. 
> Why should I bother with python, when I can get the same and 
> MORE from Ruby? 

In this specific case, because the Python designered focused on features for
maintainability, Ruby designers focused on features for power but like the
Perl that influenced it, lots of Ruby code is "write-only" code (although
careful use of frameworks such as Rails can minimize that problem.)

> If python alone existed, and the other choice 
> was perl, yes, you have a point. Otherwise, no, why put up 
> with nonsense, when you can get the same and more from somewhere else?

Ignoring your unitary definition of 'nonsense,' the answer is 'Because one
size does not fit all.'

>  I have built a framework that does it all exactly like 
> desktop. Yes, I lose flexibility, but I have no interest in 
> printing html. I have generic drawing functions that takes 
> the information and draws the windows. The total HTML code is 
> around 6000, in 3 applications totalling of 120,000 lines. 
> Very inflexible, but works for me.

Works for you, but not necessarily for others. 

>  And that's exactly what happened. Before Ruby, python, 
> despite its flagrant disregard for the wellness of the 
> programmer, did well, because the other choice was even 
> worse. But not anymore, and for that I am thankful.

"flagrant disregard for the wellness of the programmer?" Can you please
elaborate?!?!?  

>  Redundancy is terrible. Why should you want to clutter your 
> code with a self everywhere? If you are in VIM, you can color 
> $this, or self separately, so there is absolutely no chance 
> of making a mistake. Also, after sometime you automatically 
> understand when you are inside a class and when you are not. 
> You don't need a flagpost of a 'self' cluttering your code to 
> tell you that. That's a bad decision, and implying that I am 
> not capable of realizing when I am inside an object, and when 
> I am not.

Once again you expose your ignorance. Python requires self because it
doesn't give special status to method in classes; any method can be a
function or can be a method of a class, and this can change dynamically.
These are called "callables"; google it. Python could have implemented hard
to use special cases that eliminate flexibility and easily lead to bugs in
code, or go with the general case where method definitions require a 'self'
parameter. They chose the latter and it's clean and elegant and works well.
Just because you've not studied other languages enough to appreciate them
doesn't make them wrong.

>  "Antipodes" is shakespeare. I have always wanted use it 
> somewhere. :-) Nah. There is a real conspiracy here. You just 
> have to delve deeper. You are being so naive.

Looks like what I feared; you DO see a conspiracy around every corner.
Debate it only productive when it is done rationally, so it appears these
debates are just a waste of time.

Anyway, I've wasted enough time on this debate.  This will be my last post
on the subject.

-- 
-Mike Schinkel
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blogs/
http://www.welldesignedurls.org
http://atlanta-web.org - http://t.oolicio.us

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/
[2]
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/02/its_the_stupid
.html
[3] http://geekswithblogs.net/sbellware/archive/2005/03/09/25880.aspx
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_list_of_programming_languages