PHP 's Dark Side
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PHP 's Dark Side
Recently, some of the big wigs of PHP have been suggesting that PHP is becoming more and more commercial, that this is a bad thing, and that Zend is evil.
So I wanted to get an actual developers point of view on the whole thing. Is this something where people with weight are throwing around opinions that actually mean very little in the grand scheme of things (and as a result, are simply thinking themselves in touch with the developer vibe) or is it all true?
Links:
Marco Tabini
John Lim
Jeff Moore
So I wanted to get an actual developers point of view on the whole thing. Is this something where people with weight are throwing around opinions that actually mean very little in the grand scheme of things (and as a result, are simply thinking themselves in touch with the developer vibe) or is it all true?
Links:
Marco Tabini
John Lim
Jeff Moore
Not yet, but I have had the thought of this recently. And the thoughts tend to arise more often than it used to.
Just recently there are a more than a couple of things that are interesting. The biggest (for me) is Zends Pressrelease, that can be looked at in more than one way. It is public relations in all its glory, but I think about $'s in a 'bad way' when I see it.
Marco also stated a few other interesting things, but... I'm not really in liberty to actually discuss it as I'm not a proffessional in the meaning that I make a living out of PHP, Zend product and other surrounding factors.
Zend do have put in alot of good things into the various builds of PHP, so not everything is bad. Or can it?
What I instead think should be asked; Was PHP5 rushed? Was it really tested enough?
Just recently there are a more than a couple of things that are interesting. The biggest (for me) is Zends Pressrelease, that can be looked at in more than one way. It is public relations in all its glory, but I think about $'s in a 'bad way' when I see it.
Marco also stated a few other interesting things, but... I'm not really in liberty to actually discuss it as I'm not a proffessional in the meaning that I make a living out of PHP, Zend product and other surrounding factors.
Zend do have put in alot of good things into the various builds of PHP, so not everything is bad. Or can it?
What I instead think should be asked; Was PHP5 rushed? Was it really tested enough?
- feyd
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I generally support the complete feature lock that one of the dev's imposed. I've had to experience this first had in other projects. You can always keep adding new features, but at some point, the product has to ship. Although I direct new features to the next branch, until the base can be finalized. I can't quite get myself to vote in any direction. I can see both sides. 
i think that the problem isn't that they sell something on the side. I think it's the fact that they are charging a <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> load for it. if they lowered hte price to something more reasonable (like in the $100 dollar area), i guaruntee you they would see a DRASTIC increase in revenue. They no doubt have already made their money back for development, why not raise your volume in sales by lowering the price ( or making a less expensive version ) for the lower-income coders?
that's kinda why i said zend is evil. while php may have been built with that engine, by no means is it a good price for coders. They are out to make as much cash as humanly possible by overchargine for a product that shouldn't be so damn expensive, while we, the coders who really don't generate that much income, get screwed from having to pay that high of a price for this kinda product.
Yeah, yeah, i know, i know, there are all kinds of open-source free distribution interfaces for coding with php, but they dont offer the encryption power (which is all i would want out of zend anyways) that zend studio does.
rant.close();
that's kinda why i said zend is evil. while php may have been built with that engine, by no means is it a good price for coders. They are out to make as much cash as humanly possible by overchargine for a product that shouldn't be so damn expensive, while we, the coders who really don't generate that much income, get screwed from having to pay that high of a price for this kinda product.
Yeah, yeah, i know, i know, there are all kinds of open-source free distribution interfaces for coding with php, but they dont offer the encryption power (which is all i would want out of zend anyways) that zend studio does.
rant.close();
Maybe someone will think this useful, but I also work for a company that competes against Zend in the Studio arena ... and we've had a reasonably priced product but we still haven't been able to cover our development costs ... so I have to disagree that PHP is too commercial ... getting PHP for free means that alot of people expect the tools to be free too ... and there are free tools out there ... but where does the support come from?
For example, I used to work at a large company in America, and I was lobbying to use PHP for alot of the applications that they had me developing, but my boss was always asking me "where is the support?" or "where are the books?" ... things that PHP didn't have back in the dark ages before iPlanet ...
PHP brings new people that don't have alot of development experience, these people are looking for tools that make the setup and development easy ... they don't think that needing to know how to compile something is a requirement to develop web applications ... but how do you find the right tool?
By offerring commercial support for an open source product you open PHP up to being more easily integrated into the commercial world ... not just the hobbiest arena where it started out ...
Yes, I agree that Zend charges too much for it's products ... but they do have a nice wardrobe to support to get the commercial acceptance for PHP
Enough babbling ... someone edit this post so I don't sound too stupid pleas
For example, I used to work at a large company in America, and I was lobbying to use PHP for alot of the applications that they had me developing, but my boss was always asking me "where is the support?" or "where are the books?" ... things that PHP didn't have back in the dark ages before iPlanet ...
PHP brings new people that don't have alot of development experience, these people are looking for tools that make the setup and development easy ... they don't think that needing to know how to compile something is a requirement to develop web applications ... but how do you find the right tool?
By offerring commercial support for an open source product you open PHP up to being more easily integrated into the commercial world ... not just the hobbiest arena where it started out ...
Yes, I agree that Zend charges too much for it's products ... but they do have a nice wardrobe to support to get the commercial acceptance for PHP
Enough babbling ... someone edit this post so I don't sound too stupid pleas
- CoderGoblin
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I have to agree with Spooker.
If a product a company makes saves another companies time to produce code they should be able to charge for it. I personally code using a basic freebie editor.... Why, I cannot afford something like ZEND studio as I do this for my own amusement/knowledge.
However if I worked for a large company who wanted quicker coding I would look at Zend and it's competitors, evaluate them and calculate how long it would take to get a RETURN OF INVESTMENT (ROI). If buying one of their products would save me approximately 10 hours for a project at ($X per hours salary and $X miscellaneous costs such as sitting at my desk) how many projects would it take for the price to be returned. Added to that basic ROI calculation you have to apply additional 'hidden' factors. Speedier development decreases time to market (excellent for marketing your services) and leading you to be able to complete more projects. More robust code decreases maintenance (making your customers happy and possibly leading to more orders) as well as meaning more new projects can be completed. Now if each of your projects has an ongoing maintenance cost....
Why do Zend charge "so much". Well for every product you need to have a target customer. If large companies are buying a product they often don't look at a or non-existing or cheap price tag as offering a solid product. It's normally not the software experts who make the final decision but their managers or even worst a bean counter who often have no experience of the requirements of the engineers or what the product does. A sad fact of life but true.
Lessening the price probably wouldn't mean more orders. Single licenses aren't the most effective at generating revenue especially if you take support into account. If you sell to a company 5 licenses at least one of the users would become an expert and be able to sort of most of the problems of the other users, or develop work arounds.
Lets face it, all of us want "free" software tools. Does that mean you don't expect to get paid for the work you do?
If a product a company makes saves another companies time to produce code they should be able to charge for it. I personally code using a basic freebie editor.... Why, I cannot afford something like ZEND studio as I do this for my own amusement/knowledge.
However if I worked for a large company who wanted quicker coding I would look at Zend and it's competitors, evaluate them and calculate how long it would take to get a RETURN OF INVESTMENT (ROI). If buying one of their products would save me approximately 10 hours for a project at ($X per hours salary and $X miscellaneous costs such as sitting at my desk) how many projects would it take for the price to be returned. Added to that basic ROI calculation you have to apply additional 'hidden' factors. Speedier development decreases time to market (excellent for marketing your services) and leading you to be able to complete more projects. More robust code decreases maintenance (making your customers happy and possibly leading to more orders) as well as meaning more new projects can be completed. Now if each of your projects has an ongoing maintenance cost....
Why do Zend charge "so much". Well for every product you need to have a target customer. If large companies are buying a product they often don't look at a or non-existing or cheap price tag as offering a solid product. It's normally not the software experts who make the final decision but their managers or even worst a bean counter who often have no experience of the requirements of the engineers or what the product does. A sad fact of life but true.
Lessening the price probably wouldn't mean more orders. Single licenses aren't the most effective at generating revenue especially if you take support into account. If you sell to a company 5 licenses at least one of the users would become an expert and be able to sort of most of the problems of the other users, or develop work arounds.
Lets face it, all of us want "free" software tools. Does that mean you don't expect to get paid for the work you do?
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Breckenridge
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Zend should not control php as a commercial product. I have been using the Zend encoder to protect some of my code and i pay about $1000 per year to do so.
Again, the open source is power to the people by the people and if php is about to become a commercial then I'm sure a new scripting language shall be born.
Again, the open source is power to the people by the people and if php is about to become a commercial then I'm sure a new scripting language shall be born.
- John Cartwright
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noahslater
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Why not just use Emacs?
While I couldn't afford something like Zend Studio normaly a friend had a cracked copy on a CD for me.
While I do not condone such activities I thought I would have a go to see what it was like.
It was awfull... I hated it. But then again, it's not much suprise as I think most IDEs are usualy rubbish.
I am a diehard Emacs fan and will probably never switch. Do you know what the two best things about Emacs are?
1. You can get a copy of it running on virtualy any platform... (even an iPod!!)
2. You can do everything from the keyboard
So there you have it... I would recomend any of you serious coders outthere go and get yourselves a copy... http://www.gnu.org/
While I do not condone such activities I thought I would have a go to see what it was like.
It was awfull... I hated it. But then again, it's not much suprise as I think most IDEs are usualy rubbish.
I am a diehard Emacs fan and will probably never switch. Do you know what the two best things about Emacs are?
1. You can get a copy of it running on virtualy any platform... (even an iPod!!)
2. You can do everything from the keyboard
So there you have it... I would recomend any of you serious coders outthere go and get yourselves a copy... http://www.gnu.org/
Interesting reading. As someone building real business solutions with PHP, I think this argument comes down to the same argument as open source vs. commercial software, or Linux vs. Windows.
The point is, there are people who want to run a business by selling PHP based software, or run a business by using something that runs PHP (.. or Linux,etc.), and in that kind of situation I want to know that my product or my developers have got some commercial support behind them. Businesses don't care about who or what is behind something, they just want to know that there is structure in place to support choices that they make, and if you compare what it means for a business to go with a PHP/Linux/OSS solution to ASP/MS/Windows/Commercial, there's a big difference.
And the job markets for PHP are undeservedly TERRIBLE. Look at ASP vs. PHP programmers on monster.com. What does that tell you about what companies think about the difference between PHP/*nix environments and ASP/MS environments?
If PHP was backed in the way that ASP is backed by Microsoft, what I do would suddenly be worth 3 or 4 times more per hour, and I'm all for that!
The point is, there are people who want to run a business by selling PHP based software, or run a business by using something that runs PHP (.. or Linux,etc.), and in that kind of situation I want to know that my product or my developers have got some commercial support behind them. Businesses don't care about who or what is behind something, they just want to know that there is structure in place to support choices that they make, and if you compare what it means for a business to go with a PHP/Linux/OSS solution to ASP/MS/Windows/Commercial, there's a big difference.
And the job markets for PHP are undeservedly TERRIBLE. Look at ASP vs. PHP programmers on monster.com. What does that tell you about what companies think about the difference between PHP/*nix environments and ASP/MS environments?
If PHP was backed in the way that ASP is backed by Microsoft, what I do would suddenly be worth 3 or 4 times more per hour, and I'm all for that!