"We have things like protected properties. We have abstract methods. We have all this stuff that your computer science teacher told you you should be using. I don't care about this crap at all." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I really don't like programming. I built this tool to program less so that I could just reuse code." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I was really, really bad at writing parsers. I still am really bad at writing parsers." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I'm not a real programmer. I throw together things until it works then I move on. The real programmers will say "Yeah it works but you're leaking memory everywhere. Perhaps we should fix that." I’ll just restart Apache every 10 requests." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I don't know how to stop it, there was never any intent to write a programming language [...] I have absolutely no idea how to write a programming language, I just kept adding the next logical step on the way." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"For all the folks getting excited about my quotes. Here is another - Yes, I am a terrible coder, but I am probably still better than you :)" -Rasmus Lerdorf
"PHP is just a hammer. Nobody has ever gotten rich making hammers." -Rasmus Lerdorf
>I can’t even say what’s wrong with PHP, because— okay. Imagine you have uh, a toolbox. A set of tools. Looks okay, standard stuff in there.
>You pull out a screwdriver, and you see it’s one of those weird tri-headed things. Okay, well, that’s not very useful to you, but you guess it comes in handy sometimes.
>You pull out the hammer, but to your dismay, it has the claw part on both sides. Still serviceable though, I mean, you can hit nails with the middle of the head holding it sideways.
>You pull out the pliers, but they don’t have those serrated surfaces; it’s flat and smooth. That’s less useful, but it still turns bolts well enough, so whatever.
>And on you go. Everything in the box is kind of weird and quirky, but maybe not enough to make it completely worthless. And there’s no clear problem with the set as a whole; it still has all the tools.
>Now imagine you meet millions of carpenters using this toolbox who tell you “well hey what’s the problem with these tools? They’re all I’ve ever used and they work fine!” And the carpenters show you the houses they’ve built, where every room is a pentagon and the roof is upside-down. And you knock on the front door and it just collapses inwards and they all yell at you for breaking their door.
I mean, I get that you don't like PHP. Which is fine, we need people to keep the other communities humming as well.
IMO, PHP is better than any other language I have used, so I actually respect it.
The fact that the creator is open about his figuring it out along the way is pretty cool in my eyes - after all, he started before there was anything, [Alta Vista, Lycos, and a lot of friendly geeks trying to figure out how this was better than usenet?] and he made something which is very popular and really works very well.
Imagine what would happen if Vitalik was as honest as Rasmus ;)
"We have things like protected properties. We have abstract methods. We have all this stuff that your computer science teacher told you you should be using. I don't care about this crap at all." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I really don't like programming. I built this tool to program less so that I could just reuse code." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I was really, really bad at writing parsers. I still am really bad at writing parsers." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I'm not a real programmer. I throw together things until it works then I move on. The real programmers will say "Yeah it works but you're leaking memory everywhere. Perhaps we should fix that." I’ll just restart Apache every 10 requests." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"I don't know how to stop it, there was never any intent to write a programming language [...] I have absolutely no idea how to write a programming language, I just kept adding the next logical step on the way." -Rasmus Lerdorf
"For all the folks getting excited about my quotes. Here is another - Yes, I am a terrible coder, but I am probably still better than you :)" -Rasmus Lerdorf
"PHP is just a hammer. Nobody has ever gotten rich making hammers." -Rasmus Lerdorf
Ian Baker's PHP Hammer:
https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-php-singularity/
PHP: a fractal of bad design:
https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
>I can’t even say what’s wrong with PHP, because— okay. Imagine you have uh, a toolbox. A set of tools. Looks okay, standard stuff in there.
>You pull out a screwdriver, and you see it’s one of those weird tri-headed things. Okay, well, that’s not very useful to you, but you guess it comes in handy sometimes.
>You pull out the hammer, but to your dismay, it has the claw part on both sides. Still serviceable though, I mean, you can hit nails with the middle of the head holding it sideways.
>You pull out the pliers, but they don’t have those serrated surfaces; it’s flat and smooth. That’s less useful, but it still turns bolts well enough, so whatever.
>And on you go. Everything in the box is kind of weird and quirky, but maybe not enough to make it completely worthless. And there’s no clear problem with the set as a whole; it still has all the tools.
>Now imagine you meet millions of carpenters using this toolbox who tell you “well hey what’s the problem with these tools? They’re all I’ve ever used and they work fine!” And the carpenters show you the houses they’ve built, where every room is a pentagon and the roof is upside-down. And you knock on the front door and it just collapses inwards and they all yell at you for breaking their door.
>That’s what’s wrong with PHP.