Should Wikipedia's software be rewritten in Ruby on Rails? Options Rating

[LamontStormstar]

Should Wikipedia's software be rewritten in Ruby on Rails? Discuss.

[Kelly Martin]

The PHP interpreter is written in C or C++ (I forget which), but there are "features" of the PHP language that force it to be slow. Quercus gets around this (I think) by doing some one-time analysis to determine when those features are not being used, and accelerating the resulting intermediate language code when possible. There are other "accelerated PHP" systems that do similar things.

PHP is a fantastically crappy language.

[gomi]

PHP is a fantastically crappy language.

Yes, it is the crappiest web-development language out there, except for all the other ones. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[Kelly Martin]

PHP is a fantastically crappy language.

Yes, it is the crappiest web-development language out there, except for all the other ones. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Exactly! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

[GlassBeadGame]

PHP is a fantastically crappy language.

Yes, it is the crappiest web-development language out there, except for all the other ones. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

Exactly! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

I'm a rank beginner compared to many of you but PHP does seem to me to have a pretty workable set of functions for query strings, sessions, accessing manipulating MySQL, sorting, encrypting and doing many website chores. Trying to do anything in object oriented fashion gives me a headache but I doubt if that is the language's fault.

[Kelly Martin]

I'm a rank beginner compared to many of you but PHP does seem to me to have a pretty workable set of functions for query strings, sessions, accessing manipulating MySQL, sorting, encrypting and doing many website chores.

PHP makes it very easy to write code that works; but PHP makes it very hard to write code that works well, and even more so to write code that works well and can be maintained. The problem with environments with low barriers to entry is that any tyro can show up, whip something half-assed together and then claim to be an expert. I think everyone here can understand how this can be a bad thing.

[GlassBeadGame]

I'm a rank beginner compared to many of you but PHP does seem to me to have a pretty workable set of functions for query strings, sessions, accessing manipulating MySQL, sorting, encrypting and doing many website chores.

PHP makes it very easy to write code that works; but PHP makes it very hard to write code that works well, and even more so to write code that works well and can be maintained. The problem with environments with low barriers to entry is that any tyro can show up, whip something half-assed together and then claim to be an expert. I think everyone here can understand how this can be a bad thing.

Other than concerns about speed and security I wouldn't even know what what "work well" would even mean. Of course I would never hold myself out as an expert and agree with your point why writing klug programs or pages might not be a good thing.