(This article has been translated into Spanish (PDF, with some additions) by Jorge Amado Soria Ramirez ā thanks!)
Iām cranky. I complain about a lot of things. Thereās a lot in the world of technology I donāt like, and thatās really to be expectedāprogramming is a hilariously young discipline, and none of us have the slightest clue what weāre doing. Combine with Sturgeonās Law, and I have a lifetimeās worth of stuff to gripe about.
This is not the same. PHP is not merely awkward to use, or ill-suited for what I want, or suboptimal, or against my religion. I can tell you all manner of good things about languages I avoid, and all manner of bad things about languages I enjoy. Go on, ask! It makes for interesting conversation.
PHP is the lone exception. Virtually every feature in PHP is broken somehow. The language, the framework, the ecosystem, are all just bad. And I canāt even point out any single damning thing, because the damage is so systemic. Every time I try to compile a list of PHP gripes, I get stuck in this depth-first search discovering more and more appalling trivia. (Hence, fractal.)
PHP is an embarrassment, a blight upon my craft. Itās so broken, but so lauded by every empowered amateur whoās yet to learn anything else, as to be maddening. It has paltry few redeeming qualities and I would prefer to forget it exists at all.
But Iāve got to get this out of my system. So here goes, one last try.
I just blurted this out to Mel to explain my frustration and she insisted that I reproduce it here.
I canāt even say whatās wrong with PHP, becauseā 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 itās one of those weird tri-headed things. Okay, well, thatās 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 donāt have those serrated surfaces; itās flat and smooth. Thatās 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 thereās 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 āwell hey whatās the problem with these tools? Theyāre all Iāve ever used and they work fine!ā And the carpenters show you the houses theyāve 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.
Thatās whatās wrong with PHP.