PHP = Perl Improved

[Tim Roberts]

"Xah Lee" <xah at xahlee.org> wrote:

>recently i got a project that involves the use of php. In 2 days, i
>read almost the entirety of the php doc. Finding it a breeze because it
>is roughly based on Perl, of which i have mastery.
>
>i felt a sensation of neatness, as if php = Perl Improved, for a
>dedicated job of server-side scripting.

The design of the PHP language is not too bad, and the standard library is
extensive.  It is quite possible to write well-structured, class-based web
programs with PHP.

However, it seems that almost no one actually does so.  Virtually all of
the vast PHP code samples on the web are crap.  Maybe the simplicity of the
language encourages inexperienced programmers who write spaghetti code
without a thought to the structure; I don't know the exact cause, but I
have seen it more often than not.
-- 
- Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
  Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.