The end of PHP?

vaaaska

I'm not trying to start some argument...I'm just passing on the message of this article. It's an interesting read...

(I've toyed with Ruby and plan to do so in the future as I have free time)...

Regarding Ruby (and Ruby on Rails)

http://hivelogic.com/archives/2005/02/27/regarding-ruby-and-ruby-on-rails/

Elizabeth

Vaaska, that was a very interesting article - thanks for posting it.

/me runs off to play with Ruby! 🙂

vaaaska

Totally...

The great web-app BaseCamp was done with Ruby in apparently a very short amount of time by one full-time and one part-time person.

I believe that it's frequent updates are managed by just one person...

Elizabeth

Know basecamp well, but didn't know it was written in Ruby. Most excellent.

Heh I was going to install it on my local server to play around, but on a whim I asked my webhost to install it too (in case I actually ever do get anything up and running for my clients) - they just emailed me to say they're going to do a test install and make sure it doesn't conflict w/ anything else, then let me know when it's live. Sweet!

onion2k

The fact Basecamp was written in Ruby is irrelevent. What makes it so good is that the interface and the way it all works .. which was designed by the guys at 37Signals, who are experts in user interface design. Basecamp could easily be written in PHP, Perl, ASP.NET, JSP, anything..

I agree that Ruby is a decent language.. but I don't think its as great a leap ahead of PHP as some people seem to believe.

Shrike

Also I think that the author is disregarding PHP for it's wishy-washy nature, when that is one of the reasons as to why it's so prevalent now. Secondly he doesn't mention PHP 5, which is a bit of an oversight.

I do have to agree that PHP is lacking structure and that can be at times misleading. However that issue is starting to be addressed in PHP 5 with the Standard PHP Library.

I think I'm probably a bit biased having not really tried anything extensively except PHP though 😉

Elizabeth

Originally posted by Shrike
I think I'm probably a bit biased having not really tried anything extensively except PHP though 😉

I agree with you there... I am also biased toward PHP. But I'm always up for keeping an open mind and learning new things - especially if it is something that will help me or my clients down the road. I guess time will tell. Who knows what will happen to PHP now that IBM is in the mix...

vaaaska

I first became curious about Ruby because of 37Signals - they had posted a blurb in the blog looking for somebody to do the job. Eh? Ruby?

In an interview that I can't find now, somebody at 37 mentions that they felt that Ruby made development faster than with anything else and also that it took very few people. Which is why I mentioned it. Or perhaps that was just their PR wash...

Additionally, since they are 37Signals, I think that makes alot of people very curious about what's going on with all of this stuff. The fact that Basecamp was written by 37, programmed with Ruby and also it was the first major online app written with it makes it more significant than it's probably actually worth.

Plenty of reasons to be curious here...no disrespect to PHP.

onion2k

Originally posted by Shrike
Also I think that the author is disregarding PHP for it's wishy-washy nature

You don't have to write wishy-washy PHP if you don't want to. With a little effort you can write very robust, stable, and maintainable PHP.. and if you're competent you can write it quickly too.

Someone who isn't particularly familiar with object oriented programming is going to turn out complete garbage with Ruby..

Each language is only as good as the person using it.

Sgarissta

I've been toying with Ruby for a couple of months now. PHP is definitely more mature as a web scripting language, but that's mainly due to its age relative to Ruby.

Ruby's strongest points are an excellent object model, truly object oriented not bolted on. It does this in ways that PHP will never be able to, sadly. A simple example would be the following code.

5.times do |num| puts num.to_s end

Which would yield the output

This is by no means the most elegant example, but it's a simple example to show how clean the syntax, and object model is. Notice how the constant number is even an object.

Ruby has a long ways to go before it becomes a great web scripting language, but I have no doubt that it will get there, the ruby community is extremely intelligent and motivated.

So for those of you who have thus far discounted it, look out, it's coming, and it's real 😉

Shrike

Originally posted by onion2k
You don't have to write wishy-washy PHP if you don't want to.

I completely agree with you. It's perfectly easy to write good PHP and and (presumably) perfectly easy to write garbage in Ruby. I was just stating that PHP's looseness coupled with it's huge impact on the web as a whole has led to feeling that it isn't a serious language (which I disagree with).

pohopo

Something can be great and still fail. Beta vs VHS is the classic example. Ruby does look nice, however it has a large hill to climb in this world saturated with languages and frameworks.

LordShryku

Originally posted by onion2k
Someone who isn't particularly familiar with object oriented programming is going to turn out complete garbage with Ruby..

But according to that advertism...errr....article, Ruby on Rails will be incredibly simple for a new programmer. I'd expect a person new to programming wouldn't have a grip on object oriented programming, so HA! You're wrong! :p

Anyway, the statement that Ruby will take over php is a little unworldly. Most people who use php on a constant have become biased with it. And I think that user base is in a pretty good range to keep it around for a while. Not knocking Ruby, but that "article" makes a lot of claims that really don't hold water.

vaaaska

Oh interesting...this other technology they call Ajax (which is basically just javascript) is now built into Ruby.

I was contemplating picking up a book about Ruby but now the decision has been made for me...

Here's more stuff...

http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000428.html

rpanning

FYI - Slashdot posted a Ruby on Rails / Java Spring article today. I wander how much popularity for Ruby that will increase?

vaaaska

I've got a prototype of a site I'm working on with Ajax...it was quite simple.

Here is a list of more resources and some working examples...

http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/resources/programming/xmlhttprequest/examples

bpat1434

It's interesting the topic of the thread is called "The end of PHP?" and yet, no-one has mentioned it. I can't see there ever being an end to PHP. Why? Here's my reasoning:

Windows and Apple are the two largest competitors in the computer OS market (not including free *nix environments). Why do people choose Windows more frequently than Mac? Because there's more stuff developed for it. It's by FAR not the greatest, nor the easiest, but it does its job. Just like PHP. Windows will NEVER cease to exist. Too many contracts and other crap. PHP can't go away. Too many sites alread rely upon it to power their site. Most bulletin-board systems require it. But in choosing a Mac over a Windows system, 93% of the users said: "It just works". This could be applied to Ruby. Although "easier" and "faster" it's only as good as the user (stated before). So while Ruby will work, PHP is just more wide-spread and will probably stay that way because people don't care about quality or functionality, but want what the norm is. Me? I'm a user who likes to experiment and use what works the best. That's why my next laptop/computer is going to be a mac (or custom built by me).

But a very interesting article none-the-less.

~Brett

Jason_Batten

18 million sites switch over night! Ruby takes over world!

😕

planetsim

Originally posted by NetNerd85
18 million sites switch over night! Ruby takes over world!

😕

Hmm 18million i thought there were way more sites than that.

I havent looked into ruby but know a few that says its quite good. Ive been personally looking into Python. If theres going to be a language thats going to do something to PHP I think Python will be first, since its gaining popularity not just in the Web Development but also in Application Development.

Google is a good example of a big coporation using Python.

ZibingsCoder

Python should die. So should Ruby. You should NEVER be able to use an actual number as an object...

vomits