On 14 April 2016 at 01:43, Zeev Suraski <z...@zend.com> wrote: > > > On 14 באפר׳ 2016, at 7:14, Larry Garfield <la...@garfieldtech.com> > wrote: > > > >> On 4/13/16 3:24 PM, Stanislav Malyshev wrote: > >> Hi! > >> > >>> May I suggest you the following article (more of a starting point into > >>> Ceylon actually) regarding this topic: > >> There was a time where PHP was considered a good beginner's language. > >> Now it seems we want to pivot and target category theory PhDs instead? > :) > > > > A language that is usable primarily by beginners will only be useful for > beginners. Non-beginners will shun it, or simply grow out of it and leave. > > > > A language that is usable only by PhDs will be useful only for PhDs. > Beginners won't be able to comprehend it. > > > > A language that is usable by both beginners and PhDs, and can scale a > user from beginner to PhD within the same language, will be used by both. > > > > Doing that is really hard. And really awesome. And the direction PHP has > been trending in recent years is in that direction. Which is pretty danged > awesome. :-) > > I would argue that PHP was already doing that almost since inception. I > think we have ample evidence that we've been seeing a lot of different > types of usage - both beginners' and ultra advanced going on in PHP for > decades. > I would also argue that in recent years, the trending direction has been > focusing on the "PhDs", while neglecting the simplicity seekers (which I > wouldn't necessarily call beginners). Making PHP more and more about being > like yet-another-language, as opposed to one that tries to come up with > creative, simplified ways of solving problems. > Last, I'd argue that a language that tries to be everything for everybody > ends up being the "everything's and the kitchen sink", rather than > somethings that is truly suitable for everyone. > > We also seemed to have dumped some of our fundamental working assumptions > - that have made PHP extremely successful to begin with: > > - Emphasis on simplicity > - Adding optional features makes the language more complex regardless of > whether everyone uses them or not > > Really? The recent number of RFCs focusing on making some of PHPs annoyances go away have passed you by? They seem to fall squarely within "emphasis on simplicity" as far as I can tell.
Also, PHP is known as the language with a million ways to do things, where some functions even have aliases because reasons. It's been that way since a very long time. That suggests to me that complexity/optional features are not frowned upon - only some types of complexity are seen as bad, and only some types of simplicity are apparent worthwhile. Spelling out personal preferences here would probably help solve these discussions faster. > It does seem as if we're trying to replicate other languages, relentlessly > trying to "fix" PHP, which has been and still is one of the most successful > languages out there - typically a lot more so than the languages we're > trying to replicate. > > Regards Peter -- CV: careers.stackoverflow.com/peterlind LinkedIn: plind Twitter: kafe15
