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.
