Re: PHP on .NET DLR

On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 06:18:16PM -0400, Mike Schinkel wrote:
> >  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.

 They WERE trying to take control of their situation, by trying to get MS recognize the seriousness of the their problem. And well, it has worked, at least to a certain extent. MS is already touting VBx or dynamic VB, and it did make MS take a bit more effort in writing softwares to ease the migration to VB.NET, and also take other actions to appease the community.

 The thing is, when you are working on a framework, you ARE dependent on it. If there is a problem, you have to take it with the vendor. Your idea is that, everytime anything goes wrong, you will just put on your handyman hat and start poking around creating your own version of it. Hey, we got other stuff to do. If this was the case, I will just write my own language and not use anything by others. As developers, we ARE fully dependent on the platform vendors, and the only way we can affect a change in the platform itself is by complaining, or maybe switching to a competitive platform. Your ideas are simply not practical.

 I have 3 choices:
 1) Move to a competing platform
 2) Write my own dynamic language.
 3) Complain to the platform vendor to affect the change.

 Of the three, at this point, the last is the only feasible option for me. If this was 1965, I can maybe defect and start my own language.


> 
> >  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.)
> 

 Worth the effort for what? We all have other things in life, other than re-learn everything every other day. Our job is not to learn languages, but rather to deliver useful products, and we simply do not have the time or effort to focus on the languages itself. We take it for granted, so that we can focus on our application. If the language changes suddenly, it leads to loss of millions of dollars and market share. I know a company in my field, that has nearly gone bankrupt, because they tried to completely transition to .NET, and another competitor overtook them using PHP. These are all real world issues here, and lots of money and people's lives involved. You are talking in terms of an individual developer fooling around with technologies.

> > 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?

 Powershell is meant to replace VBscript. The latter is fundamentally different from the former. MS is making everyone learn everything afresh.


> 
> >  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.

 Yeah, tell that to GNU Hurd people, who are still trying to create a microkernel based operating system, and failing miserably. If done well, monolithic systems are better. The problem is that individuals are incapable of handling the kind of complexity, and then start touting simplicity as an advantage.

 Cathedral and the Bazaar? Does anybody quote it anymore these days? 

> > 
> >  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.

 For multiple commands, you have to use semi-colon, but anyway the point is moot. For all practical purposes, Powershell script (if it is written by me) looks like C.
 


> 
> >  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] :)

 To me, web is a means to deliver services to the client, and the only advantage I have seen in practice is that the lack of a specific client. Now, you can indulge yourself in a lot of jargon to make it appear something more than it is, but I don't think you will convince me.

> 
> >  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.

 Please. Even your favorite language Powershell is exactly like C. Ok, it doesn't REQUIRE semi-colon, but it works fine with it too. And you will NEED it, if you want to put multiple commands on a line, which obviously you will always need at some point.


> > 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.

 I am an application vendor. I write applications. I cannot create a platform on an operating system in which I have no experience. That's simply not possible. As with the VB devs, all I can do here, is bring the situation to the attention of the platform vendors.

> 
> >  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 language suffers, there is no doubt about it. And I have explicitly stated the reasons why _I feel_ it may not be good for Zend either, and even then, I have qualified all my statements by clearly saying that it is my opinion. I have not made any pronouncements which I had expected to be taken as literal truth merely because I said it. Zend is intimately tied to PHP, and I have no problem with them making money, as it actually benefits the language. 

 And again, as I have said, if Ruby didn't exist, it wouldn't really matter. But now it is evident that Zend's decision has clearly backfired, since Ruby is now again glowing with all the attention, merely because PHP purposefully decided to not join the .NET/sliverlight frenzy.

> > 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 cares about Developer interest in writing programs WITH phalanger, not writing phalanger. There was no Ruby Code at all, yet, MS managed to get it done in a couple of months. You are still repeating an argument that I had consistently disproved.


> 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.

 Of course, MS alone is not run by Evil spacemen from Mars. They all are the same monkey evolved human species, and they all show the same characteristics. But you can contrast them to google, which at least in theory has a 'don't be evil' policy.

> 
> 
> >  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>

 Lisp? Lisp has if/then. I have done a lot of elisp for emacs, and it is a proper language. I have no experience with SQL, but if the DB supports stored procedures, then it also should support if/then.

 Assembly has if/then/go-to, and that is how they implement the while/for loops. RSS is not a language. And is still not present in the list you have supplied. Your hyperBolic exclamations are pointless. lisp/sql--with stored procedures--/assembly are real languages. RSS is not.



> > 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.

 "Deriving simplicity from complexity?" Wht does that mean?


> 
> >  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.

 That was a genuine question. I need a dynamic C like language to build applications on windows, and I still haven't found it.

> > 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. 

 Some of my ideas will work for others, though obviusly not everything.
 
> 
> >  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?!?!?  

 Many people have requested Python to implement the variable-in-string, but nobody listens. They have pre-conceived notions of how a language should be, and any request for a feature that can ease development is met with a lot of hostile homily about what a language should be. Again, I have never coded in python, I just went through some of the emails.


> 
> 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
> 


 Here, I can conceded to you. I have not coded in python. I come from a C/c++ background, and while making a decision to choose between PHP5 or python for my web platform, I decided on PHP5, basically owing the speed, the C style syntax, and yes, it had full OO. So I can agree that it might be a specific design decision, but considering that none of the other languages have it, I am still not really convinced that this particular decision is a wise one.


> >  "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.
> 

 Well. You never provided me with any sane or coherent alternate explanation. Since I can't find any simple answers, I have to now take the investigation to the next level.