RE: PHP on .NET DLR

Sigh. I said I wouldn't post again on this topic, but...

K T Ligesh wrote:
>  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.
> 
> =========
> 
>  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.

Point is, life throws you curve balls all the time. Quit whining and learn
how to deal with it.  Nobody likes a complainer.

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

God I love you with your passive voice and "is to meant" comments.
Wikipedia calls them "weasel words." [1] :)

>  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.

There is truth in both aspects, i.e. there is some value in monolithic and
some value in modular. The difference is that I acknowledge both. :)

BTW, funny that you use the term "monolithic"; see: [2]

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

I just did.

>  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.

If you say so, I guess it must be true regardless of anyone else's opinion.
'-)

>  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.

That's what I like, someone with an open mind who realizes that their own
experiences are by a flyspec in the universe of all combined experience. ;-)

> > 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. 

Favorite language?  I like aspects of it. 
EXACTLY like C?  No, you "please."

> 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.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them think, can you?  As
I've already explained, the existence of semi-colons in a language does not
make it C.  Whether you choose to recognize it is another matter entirely.

BTW, here's a C# advocate [3] talking about what's nice about VB.NET.

>  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. 

It is possible, you just choose not to. But don't make your choice everyone
else's problem.

> > >  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. 

Zend are big boys, I think they can take care of themselves.  And in my
world I find it less offensive when people literally prefix phrases like
"short sighted business decisions" with something like "from my perspective
it appears these are." But maybe it is just me.

> I have not made any pronouncements which I had expected 
> to be taken as literal truth merely because I said it. 

You've made tons of pronouncements here, about business decisions and C
language and monolithic complexity being superior et. al. Are we now just to
assume that even though you said them you see no truth in your own
statements?  I'm confused.

> 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.

So Ruby is the one to demonize?  I guess everyone has to have an enemy.
Heck, Java was Ruby's enemy. Looks like PHP is becoming collateral damage!
LOL. :)

BTW, what Zend decision backfired?  Is this still your conspiracy theory?
Heck, if you want to talk conspiracy theories, let's talk 9/11! 

> > 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 now know what the non-existent collective consciousness of Microsoft
prefers?  Please.   And just exactly how have you "disproved" this argument?

> > So you think Microsoft is unique in unethical behaviour?   

>  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.

Google vs. Microsoft and their (don't) be evil policy? LOL!!!!  See [4].

Over time, people become what they most despise [5]. Google already has more
power than MS ever did, and we will all be lamenting that reality soon
enough.

> I have no experience with 
> SQL, but if the DB supports stored procedures, then it also 
> should support if/then.

How can you have no experience with something yet claim you know enough to
make blanket pronunciations like you do?

>  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. lisp/sql--with stored procedures--/assembly are 
> real languages. RSS is not.

Okay, I guess RSS is not a language and none of the experiences of history
related to RSS can ever apply to languages with if/then.  At least it is so
in K T Ligesh's world.

> Your hyperBolic exclamations are 
> pointless. 

HyperBolic exclamations?  And just exactly how did I exaggerate?

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

It mean refactoring to derive at simplicity rather than to strive for
maintaining complexity.

> > Works for you, but not necessarily for others. 
> 
>  Some of my ideas will work for others, though obviusly not 
> everything.

I haven't used the words "all", "every", "competely" etc. On the contrary, I
recognize that everything is gray.  OTOH, you have made a like of black and
white pronouncements, and I am highly allergic to absolutes (which is why I
have continued this debate.)

> > "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. 

Just because somebody doesn't implement a pet feature doesn't mean they are
showing "flagrant disregard for the wellness of the programmer?"  They is
significant value to having concept integrity in most anything, and because
they choose to maintain their conceptual integrity doesn't give you license
to demonize them for it.  Frankly I'm learning to like the dollar sign
prefixed variables in PHP and Powershell, but there are good reasons for
Python not including them. The fact that you willfully ignore that is
disrespectful.

Every programming language I've ever used has has aspects that I liked and
others I disliked. The only way to get my perfect language would be to
design it myself, but how useful would that be with likely nobody else using
it? If your yardstick for "flagrant disregard for the wellness of the
programmer" is that you can't have your pet feature then every programming
language is destined for the pits of hell because no language supports the
pet features of everyone except maybe those languages that have only one
user.

> Again, I have never coded in python, I just went through 
> some of the emails.

Then you really don't seem qualified to make such harsh statements?   There
are lots of things I haven't done with PHP and I refrain from sitting in
judgement of PHP because of it.  And for those things I do know of PHP such
as its random and inconsistent approach to function naming and parameter
order I find infuriating, but I'm not claiming that Rasmus or the community
is inherently evil. I recognize reality and am going about my business.

>  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.

Wow. You didn't acknowledge.  I need to grant you that. 

None of the other languages choose to use self because none of them have the
same architecture of Python?  Do I love everything about Python?  No, but I
do find many of its concepts compelling.

May I request this of you?  Develop an app in Python and another in Ruby
before making pronouncements against them.  Follow the Pragamtic
Programmer's lead [6]: 

	"Learn at least one new [programming] language every year. 
	Different languages solve the same problems in different ways. 
	By learning several different approaches, you can help broaden 
	your thinking and avoid getting stuck in a rut."

>  Well. You never provided me with any sane or coherent 
> alternate explanation. 

I did give sane and coherent alternate explanations, you just choose to
ignore that I did.  The explanations are that MS is filled with managers who
don't share a common consciousness and that they make a decision on
priorities as part of their job which are not the ones that you would have
preferred the chose. Simple as that, nothing more.

> Since I can't find any simple answers, 
> I have to now take the investigation to the next level.

Knock yourself out.

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


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_words
[2]
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/monolithiccomplexityvslotsoflittlelayers/
[3] http://weblogs.asp.net/jdennany/archive/2004/10/18/244136.aspx
[4] http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/isgooglebecomingamonopoly/
[5]
http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/becarefuloryouwillbecomewhatyoumostdespise/
[6] http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/loty/