PHP, Why it Sucks and Why I Use It!

I first came across PHP when I was back in the day when Yahoo was my homepage and Geocities covered half the internet.  Back then I really didn't have a clue, I was still in school not knowing what I was doing but it was the most amazing day of my life the moment I realised I could use it to add numbers together, store them in a text file and I'd know how many visitors have come to my site

Why PHP Sucks

• There are around 6 billion (actual figure) functions that do the same thing

  Who thought it was necessary to have str_replace.. and than to have str_ireplace?  And this isn't the only example of stupid activity.  Surely any sane person would have made this a parameter?

• Function names have no set format

  What is with the random names? So many functions that have little common format str_ or str

• Lack of method overloading

  PHP forces you to write multiple dodgy function names that will do the same thing but take different parameters.

• Anything goes Anywhere

  PHP code can often produce unexpected results, you can pass an int/boolean to a function that is expecting a Person Object.  It would helpful as your error will hit straight away rather than passing random objects about.

• Its Slow

  PHP isn't pre compiled (by standard) causing limitations in speed.  Even when it is compiled if you compare it to the OO speeds of .net its like Usain Bolt racing my Grandma (who died 12 years ago).  Its fine for peoples personal websites but if you ever want a website to aspire to anything amazing look elsewhere

   

But Facebook Use it!

Yes Facebook was developed in PHP.  That is because it was some kids small time uni project that got out of hand and tried to take over the world.  Even though Facebook is written in PHP Facebook transforms its PHP code down C++.

Why Do I Use It

The main reason for using PHP is because I need to eat and the world is full of PHP work.  It is also quick to develop basic systems on.  

Why Should Others Use It

Its easy to find cheap PHP hosting as you don't need the additional windows licensing costs and google is only 0.09 seconds away from answering any question you have or helping you find existing code.