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PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:34 am
by panic!
Would you say PHP is playing catch up with Python and Ruby? I read a forum post whereby someone claimed this but after a quick bit of research I can see Python doesn't have:
Interfaces
True scope for properties and methods
abstract and final classes
interfaces
references
Would you say Python is ahead of PHP as a language in terms of maturity?
Obviously Ruby and Python are better organised languages but I wouldn't say they are 'ahead' of PHP.
Thoughts?
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:39 am
by vargadanis
PHP is defferent in many aspect. Perl, Python, Ruby are general purpose programming languages. PHP is specific... It is primarily designed for web. But yes, those languages might be ahead of PHP but as of PHP5 a lot of things seem to change. PHP is slowly catching up.
Take a look at this:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=php%2C+p ... on%2C+ruby
What you see here represents the amount of new code being written in these languages. PHP takes the lead.
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:49 am
by Eran
What you see here represents the amount of new code being written in these languages
Not exactly, google trends represent the relative amount of searches on terms. PHP leads on popularity, which is not surprising -
PHP is ahead of both with regards to community and code base.
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:52 am
by vargadanis
That is correct. Yet you can draw a line between the interests and the amount of time being put into the developement with the languages. The more people are interested in a language the more time is being put into it and therefore it is straightforward to say that more code is being born in PHP than in Python, Perl or Ruby. Am I on the wrong track?
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:07 am
by panic!
This isn't about popularity. It's about which is the better/more magure language.
Britney Spears outsold the Beatles last year. That doesn't mean she's better. haha

Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:24 am
by onion2k
panic! wrote:This isn't about popularity. It's about which is the better/more magure language.
It's not even about which is the better/more mature language.
It's practically impossible to say which language is "better". Each has it's respective positive and negative aspects. Each has it's quirks. How happy you feel with each is the important thing - coding in a language you don't much enjoy simply because you've been told it's "better" is going to make you miserable and less satisfied with your job. That's not going to be very conducive to you writing top quality code.
Language maturity is a complete red herring in this case. PHP and Ruby are both mature enough to use in mainstream projects. The fact PHP is more mature doesn't mean anything, it's not a reason to use it over Ruby.
I don't really see Python as a web development language so I don't see what place that has here.
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:50 am
by panic!
onion2k wrote:panic! wrote:
I don't really see Python as a web development language so I don't see what place that has here.
Google, YouTube?
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:33 am
by onion2k
panic! wrote:Google, YouTube?
I didn't say you can't develop web stuff with it, I said I don't see it as a web development language - that's not it's primary usage. You could write a web app in Assembler if you felt like it, that doesn't mean Assembler is a web development language.
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:58 am
by arjan.top
so java and ruby are not web development languages too?
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:23 am
by onion2k
arjan.top wrote:so java and ruby are not web development languages too?
In my experience the majority of Java and Ruby dev has been web facing, so I would say they are.
I'm just speaking from my experience here. Yours may be different. I'd be interested to here about non-web Ruby stuff if you've encountered lots of it...
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 12:54 pm
by Christopher
panic! wrote:This isn't about popularity. It's about which is the better/more magure language.
The question is whose definition of "better" are you going to use? Certainly the people who designed Python think it is "better." But the Java and Ruby and C# and PHP people think the same thing. Add to that the question "better for what?" Do you think the group of language designers behind PHP intend to produce a "worse" language? Do you think they are simply not a good as those who produce other languages? Or do they simply have a different set of priorities? Certainly PHP being a completely web focused language, embedded in webservers, has had positive effect on its utility for web applications. But it is self-admittedly inappropriate for many other types of applications.
panic! wrote:Britney Spears outsold the Beatles last year. That doesn't mean she's better. haha

The number of fans and the amount of money made are two measures of "better" in the music business. One could argue that they are much more realistic measures than, for example, your personal taste in music.

Would you ask a classical musician who the best rock musician is? Or ask a rocker who the best classical musician is? Is either question even relevant? You would get opinions in both cases, but how are those opinions useful? They may be insightful on some levels and completely worthless on others.
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:00 pm
by panic!
I think any self respecting music-fan would agree that The Beatles are better than Britney Spears. We just know popularity is not a reliable metric for quality!
I think just because Python isn't primarily for the web. Doesn't mean it isn't good for the web. I'm not saying i personally like it but it's a multi-purpose language.
I think saying ASM and Python are comparable in usefulness for web-software is fairly incredulous.
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:07 pm
by Christopher
panic! wrote:I think any self respecting music-fan would agree that The Beatles are better than Britney Spears. We just know popularity is not a reliable metric for quality!
You have invented a magical group of "respecting music-fans" to prove your point. There are millions of Britney Spears fans who would disagree with you. So you are down to narrowing you definition of "better" or just going with your opinion.
panic! wrote:I think just because Python isn't primarily for the web. Doesn't mean it isn't good for the web. I'm not saying i personally like it but it's a multi-purpose language.
I don't think anyone said that Python is not good for we applications -- so that's a straw man argument. Django is awesome!
panic! wrote:I think saying ASM and Python are comparable in usefulness for web-software is fairly incredulous.
Another straw man argument. No one said anything about ASM. Either you entirely missed the point of my comments or you actually have no good arguments...

Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:17 pm
by Benjamin
I would encourage anyone here who wants to compare languages to find a less biased discussion forum, seriously. Even if someone on here had a good argument saying that language x is better than PHP, I know I wouldn't be quick to agree.
Play nice and relax guys.
Re: PHP, Python, Ruby.
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:23 pm
by m3mn0n
panic! wrote:Would you say PHP is playing catch up with Python and Ruby?
This is one of those topics which I really don't care for. It's all relative.
My opinion is PHP is great language. Same with Python and Ruby. PHP is my preferred choice though.
My opinion is OS X is a great platform. Same with Windows and Linux. OS X is my preferred choice though.
You can find examples of every single one of these things really excelling at what they do, how they do it, and a lot of people really enjoying it for their own usage.
Before I take a stab at making comparisons, you'd have to apply some sort of a scenario or implementation where a comparison can be made. Generally speaking, it's relative to your personal preference and past experiences. When talking about a specific case or implementation, you can actually benchmark the options so you can see which can perform better, which has better features to suit the job, what are all of the disadvantages (if any) and come to a conclusion from that.
And on that note, I'd like to say that personally I don't really care for the Beatles and I actually enjoy Britney's latest album.
