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lucasyvas | 6 months ago

PHP is a DeLorean. I think I encountered 10 segfaults in it within 1 year which is a complete joke. This was only two years ago.

It also includes breaking changes in point releases which is a nonsensical maintenance strategy - this is in stark contrast to the reputation of stability in a Corolla.

While PHP may have some strengths, it immediately fails this particular comparison.

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9dev|6 months ago

> I think I encountered 10 segfaults in it within 1 year which is a complete joke.

Segfaults in PHP are highly unusual. The language definitely has warts, but it's extremely well tested and usually doesn't crash in production, unless you're using unstable extensions or pre-release versions.

> It also includes breaking changes in point releases which is a nonsensical maintenance strategy

There are lots of projects out there that do not follow semver for their releases; that doesn't mean it isn't stable in itself. Having said that, every PHP release at least has proper change logs so you can safely migrate to a new version.

hu3|6 months ago

Yeah I don't remember last time I saw PHP segfault. And I have clients that easily sum billion+ requests per month in PHP alone.

GiorgioG|6 months ago

I will never give PHP any serious thought. Back in the mid 2000s I started an app hosting company as a side-gig. I started out hosting FogBugz (bug tracker) because Fog Creek Software only offered it as a self-hosted option. I had zero problems for 9 months - it was a Microsoft ASP based app (IIRC). Then I decided to host a helpdesk app called HelpSpot. At the time it was a one-man startup and he didn't offer a SaaS option either so he was happy to send customers my way. The software itself was fine (and it's still around) but it was a PHP-based system and no matter how up to date I kept the servers, the PHP servers got hacked over and over due to PHP's complete disregard for security at the time. My claim to fame is I hosted Twitter's first helpdesk. I got tired of getting home from work and having to rebuild servers almost weekly, so I "sold" my fledgling little sidegig for $2k. Screw PHP.

b112|6 months ago

While it certainly could have been PHP, the amount of poorly coded PHP back then was more often the issue.

It's one of the main reasons that frameworks exist today. 99% of DEVs are not security conscious enough, and would leave gaping holes in their code. No input validation, SQL injections, trusting data posted to code without validation, on and on.

If you were continuously hacked no matter the update, likely the code was the issue not PHP. Or of course, your servers were backdoored at that point.

A framework often protects from much of this.