On 28 July 2013 17:48, Robert Cummings <robert(a)interjinn.com> wrote:
On 13-07-28 06:33 AM, Svip wrote:
Particularly because int nor str doesn't
exist in the language, you
Yes they do.
No, they don't. They only exist in the context you describe below:
cannot cast
things in PHP to control your types.
One certainly can:
$int = (int)$string;
Can I do var_dump(int);? Well, it turns out the only thing you can do
is casting, but even casting in PHP is rather pointless.
I can only see one failing... consistent and much of
that is for historical reasons and the
mirroring of C based library functions. All turing complete languages are predictable by
definition. PHP is certainly concise compared to many languages. Reliability is
dependent
on the skill level of the developer. Debuggable is certainly possible, although perhaps
more
difficult than some languages. Screen prints, log prints, and xdebug generally make the
process simple enough.
I have been doing a lot of debugging PHP in my time, and I know how it
works. That doesn't change the fact that it is rather annoying and a
tedious process compared to other languages. I also like that other
languages *tell* you stuff, rather than having to know all these small
quirks in a language; this create language overhead, meaning a
programmer needs to contain a lot of information readily available
when programming.
And for what? So I can save 10 minutes when setting up, but enduring
6 months of torture? Yeah, I think I'll pass.
PHP wasn't chosen for MediaWiki because it was the language the
development team (at least the current) liked the best; but because
the first developer on MediaWiki chose it. And that's that.