php vs python

[NC]

On May 25, 1:55 pm, Ivan Illarionov <ivan.illario... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 25 May 2008 13:28:25 -0700, NC wrote:
>
> > A quick look at the revision log:
>
> > http://byteflow.su/log/
>
> > reveals that the initial commit of 60 or so files has been done
> > on 08/14/07 (10 months ago), a second developer came on board
> > 12/01/07 (seven+ months ago), a third one, on 01/04/08 (six+
> > months ago), a fourth one, on 01/16/08 (also six+ months ago).
> > There are at least nine discernible contributors overall.  Say
> > what you will, but it still looks an awful lot like like two
> > man-years, Django or no Django...
>
> I bet that if they did this with PHP framework they where far
> from where they are now.

The question is, which way?  :)  Jerry Stuckle, with whom I
wholeheartedly argue about half the time we post to the same threads
and argue bitterly the other half of the time, thinks they would be
ahead of where they are now...  :)

> I didn't say that it's not possible to write good code in PHP,

Indeed you didn't.  You did, however, say that development in Python/
Django is inherently faster than development in PHP (your exact words
were, "2 man/year in PHP == 2 man/week in Python/Django", implying a
50-fold difference).  This claim has just been obliterated using the
example you (not I) provided; my estimate of two man-years for
developing WordPress turns out to be fairly close to what has actually
gone into the development of Byteflow.  In other words, so far we have
discovered no evidence of Python's (or PHP's, to be fair) superiority
in terms of developer's productivity.

> IMHO Python language is better designed

That is indeed a matter of opinion.  You like (among other things)
immutable strings, the off-side rule, the idea that everything is an
object, and the fine distinction between mutable lists and immutable
tuples, and I have no problem with you liking these features, as long
as you agree that other people may have reasons to like the
alternatives better.

> Yes, it's possible to write something clean in PHP but it
> would require a lot more work.

In my opinion, it wouldn't, and in my experience, it doesn't.  All you
need is to actually put a designer in charge of design.  Additionally,
there are situations (rapid prototyping, for example) when
maintainability (the requirement behind the "clean code") is simply
not a concern.

Cheers,
NC