My BCPL was all on a network of BBC Micros - I used it to create a network for overall factory automation in a flexible manufacturing plant...
Fun days...
I see you can get all that BCPL for the Raspberry Pi now, but somehow I just don't have the enthusiasm for it anymore...
Gordon
I felt the same. How could this work?, I thought. But it does work, and some of my PHP not only writes the HTML, it writes the CSS and JavaScript/jQuery as well. It helps that I had early experience of code-writing programs in the 1970s.
I didn't read that, I just started using PHP. It's important not to get hung on preconceptions about what a tool should be like, based on tools you've used before. The author is clearly well up on the theoretical aspects of language design and implementation, and from that point of view of course PHP sucks. But it's popular for good reason.
Snap!
JavaScript is free on any normal Web browser. It can, if one knows how, read local files, but not write, so it is safe. Output can be copied to clipboard to an editor to disc, or sent to printer. The language is a bit like C.
Usenet news:comp.lang.javascript is still in use.
JavaScript can do animated diagrams.
JavaScript in Windows Script Host can do a lot, including harm ...
Mine was a compiler and run time system for a product called Millennium (for Dun and Bradstreet).
I used the BBC ROM at times, but not a lot. I wrote a lot of different coe generators (including a heavily optimising one for the Z80 for an embedded system).
True. I do have an INTCODE verion on the PC somewhere...
I did several years of maths at university before abandoning it (so as never to have to see another differential equation) and changed to Comp Sci instead. I don't think any program I've ever written since then needed much more than basic arithmetic.
The only advantage a maths background has, to my way of thinking, is that anyone who's battled through the sorts of maths proofs that run for page after page may have a better grasp of the importance of doing things in the right order, and/or building on what you already know (or in programming having a well-designed set of primitives & data structures).
Personally I'd say that the main thing is encouraging him to identify 'things to code'; so what's he interested in?
My daughter coded herself an IRQ client in java (which I suspect was fairly significant in her getting a well paid programming job) but that was 'her' interest.
My son did some graphics programming ('cos he liked Minecraft and wanted to do some 3D visualisation work), also he's used VBA in Excel to create his own port of 'Game of Life'*, and those were his interests.
I worked for 15 years coding in COBOL and Visual Basic for several insurance products and did F-all home coding.
The truth is that coding is a time consuming activity, so if your son is going to get anything out of it, he's going to have to find something WORTH getting out of it.
If he's a 'hands on' kid, it may be worth getting an arduino kit**, then he can then work on computer control stuff
The fact that error handling is completely broken and logging sucks is not a theoretical problem. It's a very real problem when some broken arsed PHP stops working on my servers and *I* have to try to debug it.
The random string casting is an abomination too - even perl does that better, despite having the same design goal of "trying to be helpful".
The error logging aspect has always annoyed me even before I had any other reasons to be prejudiced as it makes my life hell trying to debug other peoples code.
It did also strike me when I actually had to write some that the naming of stuff was totally inconsistent too.
I have not personally been bitten by half the stuff in that article but it has shown me two things:
1) Never ever use it when there is any choice;2) Explains to some degree why it's usually some PHP monstrosity that gets my servers hacked (eg PHPBB, Wordpress). It's a buggy language which seems to have been designed by woolly headed people and attracts woolly headed people in droves to write buggy code with their buggy language.
That does not mean you can, as the author said, write good stuff in PHP
- so don't think I'm levelling insults at the competent who can write good code and be on guard WRT to the language bugs, but the hours I've spent dragging hacked servers back to life entitles me to a bit of a rant.
And people have the check to criticise perl!
That's next Xmas sorted then
Nice to know there's life after Minecraft. The grandson doesn't think so ATM!
I sympathise, and I'd be the last person to deny anyone a good rant. The person who wrote the "fractal" critique was obviously enjoying himself immensely.
While mulling over the topic last night I came to the conclusion that PHP places a lot more responsibility on the programmer than most language environments, which is what you seem to be saying to some extent. As an experienced (started in 1962) coder I find it refreshingly trusting.
Somewhat paradoxically I think PHP might be a good language for a beginner because it usually does *something* even if it's not what you thought you'd told it to do. Its anarchic nature means an absence of off-putting bureaucracy such as you find in VB. When the beginner gets a bit more experience he's more likely to be more tolerant of an environment in which a program refuses to do *anything* unless you've dotted all the "i"s and crossed all the "t"s.
No language is above criticism. I like perl but have totally converted to PHP for new projects, and I translate old perl to PHP from time to time. For your peace of mind I should add that these are all personal projects and it's a quarter-century since I wrote anything that I expected anyone else to maintain (or even look at).
All kinds of things "work", but are vile. MS Windows, for example.
Another reason it sucks, then. :o)
If you want to write in such an environment, how about doing it in assembler?
And you think this is a *good* thing?
(All said with good humour, BTW. I'm not getting at anyone. My professional programming days are about over. I'm semi-retired and although I still work in IT, I haven't written anything other than quick & filthy hacks (in Perl, to help the Windows geeks, who seem to lack basic skills) for years.)
The language is not even remotely like 'C'.
Quite. I'm a biochemist by training and have had a reasonably successful career in IT.
It uses { ; } the same way! ;-)
'Fraid not.
This is I think the nub of the whole problem.
PHP is very accessible - which makes it attractive to "web hackers" as opposed to full time coders who know their craft (not trying to put you or anyone here in any particular box!)
Unfortunately this makes it the last language that should place any responsibility on the hacker to do the right thing :) The two concepts are very much at odds.
I approve of an accessible web language, but it needs to be robust and make the hacker do the right thing (or blow up, but in a helpful way). Otherwise you get half arsed hackers writing full blown web apps that are full of security holes.
I'm not saying the language should raise the bar and exclude web hackers
- they have given us many useful things that hard core coders might not have been bothered ever to do - but the language really needs to coerce them to write solid code.
You can't stop a total n00b from writing crap, but you can hand out the rope in short enough sections so they can't hang themselves :)
I still write useful 1 page CGIs in perl. But if I had to, I would use python for more complex web stuff as do all my colleagues. In fact I am learning python and some django (web app thingy based on python). I've only ranted against pythons stupid indenting bollocks, but in every other respect it looks like a very clean and fine language.
Why do I find resonance with that statement?
And I give you ... Mt. Gox!
Written (in PHP) by a half-arsed hacker, lost $484M.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.