All Bless PHP
Today’s issue of Wall Street Journal has an article by David Bank, “PHP Language Wins Supporters As Tool for Making Web Software: Alternative to Sun’s Java Is Adopted by Companies, Developers Like Andreessen”. On the whole, it plays up PHP and its success over the years, but contains several things that I could not help but talk about here. I hope WSJ doesn’t mind if I quote a few sentences.
Back when the Web was young, Marc Andreessen, then the wunderkind co-founder of Netscape Communications Inc., gave his backing to a new software programming language from Sun Microsystems Inc. That blessing launched the Java language as a counterweight to Microsoft Corp.’s technology dominance. A decade later, Mr. Andreessen is endorsing another programming language called PHP as an alternative to Java for creating a new generation of Internet software.
I like Marc. He’s a bright guy who did a lot for the Web by driving the development of NCSA and Netscape browsers and trying to fight Microsoft. But “blessing” and “endorsement”? I would really hope we’re past the point where intelligent developers — and would you want any other kind — are swayed by a celebrity endorsement that tells them what programming language they should use. I think PHP’s record speaks for itself, and hardly needs any “blessing”. My guess is that this is a marketing maneuver designed to capitalize on the recent news of Marc joining Zend’s board of directors.
“When it comes to the Web and Web applications, Java is not the right language,” Mr. Andreessen says.
Indubitably so.
But he adds: “[..] PHP is to 2005 what Java was to 1995.”
If that means that all of a sudden there are hundreds of half-assed books written by people suffering from what can only be called delusions of self-grandeur and whose only skill is the ability to copy-and-paste text from the online manual, no, thank you. If that also heralds the day that I see thousands of job postings asking for overpaid and underqualified PHP consultants with “10 years of experience” who don’t know their 404 from 403 and whose highest qualification is building a personal guestbook, I can live without that too. Although, maybe it’s already happening..
Zend, originally based in Israel, includes two of the leaders of the open-source PHP effort, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, who took over the project from Rasmus Lerdorf, who released the first version in 1995.
That’s just plain wrong. Rasmus didn’t hand off the project to Zend, but to the open source community that Zend and Andi are part of. Keep your facts straight, WSJ.
IBM has assigned 20 engineers to PHP and is particularly focused on improving the technology’s security, considered a weak point.
These must be phenomenally stealthy engineers, sneaking onto our CVS server and planting in the bug fixes under the cover of the night. Because that’s the first that I have heard of 20 IBM engineers working on PHP, and the article makes it sound like they are engaged in it full-time. What are they producing exactly? Maybe I’m senile, but other PHP developers, such as Edin and Ilia, confirmed that there has not been a single official security patch from IBM. The only regular contributor from IBM that I know if is Dan Scott, and he himself acknowledges that he only spends about 10% of his time on PHP-related stuff. If I am incorrect, then I would invite IBM to share with the PHP community all the work that these engineers have been producing.
I don’t know who David Bank interviewed for this story exactly — aside from Zend folks, Marc, and Rod Smith — but next time he should include a couple more relevant people, like, oh, say, Rasmus. It’s only fair. Me, I’m going to listen to a song from 1995.
29/09/2005 at 11:41 am Permalink
There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?
I would actually say that Rasmus didn’t hand off the project at all. Maybe it would be better to say that he opened up the project to the open source community, since “handing off” makes it sound like he’s no longer involved.
29/09/2005 at 12:15 pm Permalink
Maybe they are also talking about the pecl/SDO people. Still does not come to 20 in total and still does not concern security.
29/09/2005 at 1:14 pm Permalink
>> “When it comes to the Web and Web applications, Java is not the right language,” Mr. Andreessen says.
> Indubitably so.
Um, what? Java kicks ass for Web applications. The PHP community is constantly trying to emulate Java technologies, and have a long way to catch up. PHP really is an inconsistent hacked together collection of code, in various stages of completion. That said, I do like PHP for fairly basic stuff.
Rasmus’ book is included in that list on Amazon…
29/09/2005 at 1:19 pm Permalink
Andrei, I agree that the PHP project being handed off was inaccurate. However, it’s been my experience with the press that inaccuracies always creep into these articles, because the people that write them, aren’t subject matter experts. So I hope that people don’t believe everything they read but realize that these things happen in almost every news story.
I do however think, that in general, such articles appearing about PHP are great news for everyone. Many of the people you mentioned in your blog entry and others, are making a living off PHP, and the perception of the technology, whether by techies or business people, is making a difference in the adoption of PHP, creating more jobs, allowing companies using PHP technology to win more tendres, and overall it’s a win for every PHP developer out there. Marc Andreessen’s endorsement of PHP is due to his genuine enthusiasm for the technology (he also learnt and coded in PHP) and not just because it’s cool. He’s a very smart guy and doesn’t say things he doesn’t believe in. As mentioned, I do think that these kind of people standing up and saying “PHP is a legitimiate” technology is a good thing, and even though some people say PHP doesn’t need help, the fact is that this kind of endorsement is actually making their lives easier too. I can point at many of the core developers on internals@ who’s companies (and their overall success) is very much affected by these kind of trends, and are either loosing or winning jobs as a result of such awareness.
Regarding IBM’s contribution. They have contributed to a variety of PHP and related projects. Although it’s not for me to go into detail, they have done things in addition to just contributing to PDO, SDO, SOAP (which they did quite a lot of work on, even if CVS doesn’t show it), and fostering other PHP related projects which wouldn’t show up directly in our CVS. From being a bit closer to what has happened over the past year, I wouldn’t say 20 people is an over statement. There are a variety of technical people who have contributed to various aspects of PHP proliferation, even if not necessarily directly to the CVS. But anyway, these things of course take time for a big company, and the pieces and contributions will fall in place over time and not in one day
29/09/2005 at 1:24 pm Permalink
> Java kicks ass for Web applications.
To anyone who has ever and will ever try to argue this point, you need to substantiate your claim by pointing out a web site written in Java that does not suck. I challenge you to find a single one.
29/09/2005 at 1:29 pm Permalink
You can’t be serious and must be trolling. cj.com is one, off the top of my head. I know I’ve used many other Java (and .Net) web sites that also do not suck.
29/09/2005 at 1:57 pm Permalink
Maybe I should qualify that by saying a web site that can’t be reproduced in static HTML.
I mean a web site that does something and that people actually use. Amazon, Yahoo, Google, TicketMaster, etc.
29/09/2005 at 2:08 pm Permalink
Well, you lost me – cj.com doesn’t do something and people don’t actually use it? At my local Java users group they demonstrated how they’re using Java technologies to create a great many usable web sites/technologies.
29/09/2005 at 2:17 pm Permalink
By the way, in my response, I meant that 20 people isn’t an over-statement
29/09/2005 at 9:01 pm Permalink
Without commenting on the WSJ article, eBay is written in Java. Without commenting on whether eBay sucks, it does things and people actually use it.
30/09/2005 at 2:57 am Permalink
Andi – it’s not only the press that writes inaccurate information. It’s also the press/marketing department of the company that distributes the information to the press.
We’ve seen this in Zeev’s interview where it was claimed that Zend has been the founder of PHP (which is wrong) and continued to the German company profile folder (which clearly separates between the “emryonal PHP/FI 2.0″ and “PHP”), the claim from one of your former VPs marketing in front of one of our customers that Zend has invented the SOAP and socket extension (which definitely is wrong although I have to say that I’m *very* lucky that people like Dmitry care about i.e. the SOAP extension) etc.
Not to mention the whole stuff about the ZendCore Network – you (as a company) didn’t provide any information about when the fixes will come back to the public repository and why you are doing so (for me it’s evidence: to earn money throughout a stable non-public network programme. That’s fine with me – you have to pay your employees, but it’s a matter of communication with the community – you don’t own the PHP code, so you – as a company – have to respect the community). I’m not sure if Zeev’s blog posting would have appeared if I didn’t ask some serious questions via mail.
I have been following Zend’s way of communicating since 2000 (anyone remembers the nice guy from Suisse who was caring for the German usergroups?). Unfortunately, you haven’t learned *anything* in those 5 years and because I really admire what you (Andi, Zeev and all the others) and many others have done for the community it’s a shame that Zend doesn’t try to behave in a more community-friendly way. It’s the community who made all this possible.
Have a look at MySQL, for example. Although they made a really big mistake (from my POV) with the client licensing change from LGPL to GPL in the way how they communicated it (in fact: they didn’t communicate anything about that), they really *care* for the community. Although they are also VC funded, they know where there roots are and whom they should not forget: the community.
As a conclusion, I do very much agree on the rest of your posting – it’s good that “industry leaders” recognize PHP as a language for getting things done. But please mind your responsibility for the roots where you came from.
30/09/2005 at 6:04 am Permalink
Andrei, I share your respect for Marc Andreessen. Although, I’m not sure what it means that he’s a member of the Board now.
30/09/2005 at 8:42 am Permalink
Short answer to Bjorn:
a)Dmitry wrote the SOAP extension as a task I gave him as part of his employment at Zend! So yes, Zend is responsible for SOAP. No idea regarding socket. I’m sure none of our marketing/sales guys even know of the socket extension so this is probably a mistake.
b)Zend Core policy is to contribute the fixes right away to public CVS. Not only because we think it’s the right thing to do, but it’s also easier for us. There is no advantage in us not contributing those patches as quickly as possible into the public CVS. Many of the fixes done by Antony, Dmitry and others over the past few months came to CVS in real time and where as a result of Zend Core.
30/09/2005 at 5:49 pm Permalink
“If that means that all of a sudden there are hundreds of half-assed books written by people suffering from what can only be called delusions of self-grandeur and whose only skill is the ability to copy-and-paste text from the online manual, no, thank you. If that also heralds the day that I see thousands of job postings asking for overpaid and underqualified PHP consultants with “10 years of experience” who don’t know their 404 from 403 and whose highest qualification is building a personal guestbook, I can live without that too. Although, maybe it’s already happening..”
So, you’d rather have PHP be like, say, Lisp – where only academics use it? Seems you’re rather confused about the intent of PHP.
01/10/2005 at 8:12 am Permalink
Anonymous Jeremy with the fake email addy,
Dude, seriously why don’t you get a life and quit being a pest on someone else’s blog. I would easily say Andrei has a MUCH firmer grasp on the intent and direction of PHP than you do. I would suggest you go visit http://www.slashdot.com. The quality and style of comments you have exhibited on this blog are well accepted there and you will fit right in.
01/10/2005 at 11:23 am Permalink
Jeremybadspellerstone: LOL, you’re the one acting like a slashdot troll – butt out and stop trying to speak for others and making petty attacks.
I have a very firm grasp of PHP – been using it since when it was PHP/fi 3.x.
01/10/2005 at 12:45 pm Permalink
Not such a firm grasp of the version numbers, though..
01/10/2005 at 4:05 pm Permalink
I forgot a / between PHP/FI and 3.x.
02/10/2005 at 8:11 pm Permalink
Jeremy,
Here’s a cookie and two quarters, now go call someone who cares.
02/10/2005 at 8:35 pm Permalink
Good one, Jeremy Trollstone! Keep it and buy a life!
03/10/2005 at 3:34 pm Permalink
Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?
03/10/2005 at 4:03 pm Permalink
LOL. You racist.