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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:24 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Ok, now that you have done your homework, how did Zend get its name. And no peaking on Google either.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:44 pm
by Christopher
Maybe someone should has Andy and Zeev why their company is called that.
I do think the Rasmus article highlights a mindset that is responsible for so many things like the namespaces implementation. Think of _autoload that had to be fixed with spl_autoload, and the magic functions that they had to keep fixing and fixing. And the firedrill of features that were added to 5.2 so the Zend Framework would work. It is a little annoying that they were many of the things that the framework guys had asked for years ago (and were sort of told to go away).
And I am honestly not being critical of their competence. I think PEAR is another example -- again very competent. The problem is a lack of visionaries. The PHP/PEAR types eventually fumble their way to something reasonable, but you really can't call it innovative (unless you squint really hard). I don't claim I would do any better, and I certainly don't want to criticize their achievements -- but that does not change the reality.
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 7:49 pm
by superdezign
Zeev-Andi. Zend.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:56 am
by timvw
It keeps me wondering... How is another layer of complexity going to make php any better?
My original reason to choose for php was because of it's simplicity. If it gets any more complex than it is already, i wonder why i would choose for the wannabe platform when there are other platforms that have already matured...
Why do you want to build a framework if your language still allows for xss and sql injection attacks that easily? (Any other platform has atleast some countermeasures, eg: applying htmlentities to all output by default)
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 7:44 am
by Chris Corbyn
I've already started drifting down the Java route. I almost long for Java's OO model, nicely mixed with PHP's huge featureset. To be honest, PHP 5 is pretty darn close to what I just described anyway. Exceptions for one, were a definite improvement in PHP 5. It didn't just sprinle sugar into the language, it actually allowed you to handle program flow differently. You can do things with exceptions that you just cannot do with errors. Shame they skipped on "finally { }" though.
I'm not sure that PHP is adding complexity. They're not taking away the abilty to develop like everyone developed in PHP4, they're just adding features and increasing flexibility. The scary thing is just how much PHP seems to be turning into a loosely-typed Java. It's a way I feel comfortable developing, but its probably half the reason I'm spending more and more time writing Java outside of work these days too. Even the code people are writing is starting to look more and more like Java, and MVC frameworks + template engines are making web apps look like more Servlets + JSP. Heck, you can even use the Java extension to work with your Java classes inside PHP
I agree that there has to be a line which mustn't be crossed and they're probably standing on it now.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:25 am
by superdezign
d11wtq wrote:I agree that there has to be a line which mustn't be crossed and they're probably standing on it now.
I bet if you asked them, the only line they are afraid to cross is the line of strict / loose typing. I'd personally prefer strict typing, but since it isn't a compiled language, it may not help much...
You think PHP is getting closer to Java or closer to C++? I honestly can't tell which way they're after.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:16 am
by Chris Corbyn
superdezign wrote:d11wtq wrote:I agree that there has to be a line which mustn't be crossed and they're probably standing on it now.
I bet if you asked them, the only line they are afraid to cross is the line of strict / loose typing. I'd personally prefer strict typing, but since it isn't a compiled language, it may not help much...
You think PHP is getting closer to Java or closer to C++? I honestly can't tell which way they're after.
There's no way it's getting like C++

Well, it's got curly braces and classes, but other than that it's quite different really, unless you compare it to something like lisp, then it's frighteningly similar
I'm not sure about strict typing. I've argued before that it would be a nice "optional" feature but my stance on it now is that if you want strict typing you're using the wrong language. I can understand why you'd want to be able to type hint on interfaces, but type hinting on strings for example is taking it a little bit far I think. I'm not even sure it's easily doable without a massive rewrite of the engine.
I'm quite happy with the language as it stands. The additional things I'd like to see are relatively minor and not so important.
Decent namespacing
Try/Catch/Finally
That's all really

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:18 am
by Ollie Saunders
If you ask me, Ruby is the way to go. Oh wait, nobody asked me.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:25 am
by RobertGonzalez
I agree with d11 about PHP being similar in style to Java. Have you ever picked up some Java code and read it? I am doing this with Head First Design Patterns at the moment. I swear I can readily port their Java examples to PHP on the first run. It makes sense to me, and it is something that I really to start looking closer into.
Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:25 am
by superdezign
I'd also like some control (or at least more insight) on the memory handling. We could speed things up on our own if we could optimize like that.
Edit: Maybe I just like C++ so much that I was hoping they'd be moving in it's direction. There are a lot of similarities with Java, aside from the forced OO.