[Info-vax] OS implementation languages

[Simon Clubley]

On 2023-09-08, bill <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/8/2023 10:03 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> In article <km0l0iF8emlU3 at mid.individual.net>,
>> bill  <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 9/7/2023 9:18 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>> [snip]
>>>> My moment of enlightenment was the day I was told I wasn't a "real
>>>> programmer" since I didn't know or use PHP.  Guy didn't even know what
>>>> assembly language was.  It's actually a bit scary.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I'm a real programmer.  I know PHP and that's why I don't use it.
>> 
>> This seems apropos:
>> https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
>> 
>
> That was good.  Even some stuff in there I didn't already know about.
> But my biggest argument was how it works so very hard to make security
> in the environment it is most used (the web) totally nonexistent.
>

Unfortunately, I _do_ have to use PHP sometimes.

It didn't take me long to establish some solid rules, such as strict
comparisons at _all_ times, and to use a monitor library I wrote that
has the allowed error level turned all the way down so that things
which PHP normally allows through generate an error instead.

|PHP is built to keep chugging along at all costs. When faced with either
|doing something nonsensical or aborting with an error, it will do something
|nonsensical. Anything is better than nothing.

It is a horrible, horrible, language that like Javascript has been
turned from something used for writing little scripts into something
used to write mission-critical and highly sensitive applications,
which neither of them are suitable for.

>From that page:

|PHP is built to keep chugging along at all costs. When faced with either
|doing something nonsensical or aborting with an error, it will do something
|nonsensical. Anything is better than nothing.

That sums up the language perfectly (and the same mindset is equally true
for Javascript in IMHO). They were both designed for quick hacks, not for
serious mission-critical applications.

And don't get me started on the fact that server-side Javascript is
actually a thing...

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.