MUHIMU: Kama wewe ni Web Designer/Programmer

[MK254]

I think most people loathe PHP because it was initially poorly designed (if not designed at all), plus it allowed for so many bad practices and thus, so many early PHP adopters ( still many more today) were/are bad programmers because of this. Many PHP programmers i have come across don't even know how to test their code, version control was/is still to some a foreign idea, I know a PHP guy who's very good with it but doesn't even use git, so he's a maintaining a Huge Monolith of a codebase that's not Versioned and he's making money off it. Of course he'll always give you an example of facebook, yahoo, and wikipedia, sometimes it feels that the worst part about PHP is that it actually works whether you do it right or wrong. Yes most of these PHP guys adjusted to challenges that was posed by much cooler languages like Ruby and Python and became good programmers but there's more bad PHP programmers than the good ones, so yeah, that's one of the reasons most programmers don't like php.

You can't hate a tool for allowing you to use it badly. It must be noted that, programming is not just a career, but a way of life, a lifestyle, you've to be passionate about it and not the type that must be enforced by a tool to become a good programmer.

You've to be the type that spends long hours learning new ways of making your programming skills better, making use of every known concept out there. Ensuring every line of code you write can be useful to others, and more importantly, can make sense to you one year later.
Making use of tools like PHPUnit for unit testing through the development cycle, taking precautions and ensuring security (develop defensively), incorporate helpful designing concepts such as DRY and ORM, Indent your code properly and use meaningful naming conventions, profile your code with tools such xdebug.....

I can go on and on, but my point is simply about taking charge as the developer, being mature and disciplined enough to be relied upon. Language/tool haters are just lazy-bums who find solace by blaming anything, there are also the so called "purists" who pretends to hate Python simply because it allows dynamic typing as opposed to "true languages" that enforces static typing such C and C++.

 

[Mtangoo]

stormryder how many languages have you used for backends that convinces you that Python have no match? I love and drum behind Python a lot but I find your statements always overstated. Python have a lot of matches in backend and like all languages it is beaten by some in some areas

 

[mtembea kwa miguu]

Naona watu wametaja language nyingi sana lakin sijaona language moja ambayo iko so familia katika vyombo vya electronic. Mwenye uelewa na Aduino plz come on the board

 

[Mtangoo]

zech I don't write unit test or any other tests. I haven't found yet a convincing reason why I should do, so far. Am super debugger guy and can locate issues easily. May be you can convince me today.
I version my stuff though. I know its super important. And git is cooler than old good svn and grandma cvs

 

[Mtangoo]

Naona watu wametaja language nyingi sana lakin sijaona language moja ambayo iko so familia katika vyombo vya electronic. Mwenye uelewa na Aduino plz come on the board

Because it's off topic. Start your own thread

 

[MlimaSayuni]

stormryder how many languages have you used for backends that convinces you that Python have no match? I love and drum behind Python a lot but I find your statements always overstated. Python have a lot of matches in backend and like all languages it is beaten by some in some areas

Actually I don't mean Python is superior, I use PHP a lot , but Python Zen is convincing

 

[MlimaSayuni]

Naona watu wametaja language nyingi sana lakin sijaona language moja ambayo iko so familia katika vyombo vya electronic. Mwenye uelewa na Aduino plz come on the board

May be hujafanya utafiti, Language tulizosema humu can be used also in electronics, eg C/C++, watu wametaja Golang which primarly is system language wametaja Java, Python which now is second in embedded system programming hasa mwenye Raspberry Pi na Arduino also Kuna Web Technologies kama Node Js na PHP can be used in IoT tafuta board za Intel Edison, simply inabidi uelewe Programming is modifying system behaviour hata web unaweza ukaandika kwa Assembly like languages hata kwa 1 and 0 cha msingi uweze kuwa na Logic ya unachotaka kufanya

 

[zech]

zech I don't write unit test or any other tests. I haven't found yet a convincing reason why I should do, so far. Am super debugger guy and can locate issues easily. May be you can convince me today.
I version my stuff though. I know its super important. And git is cooler than old good svn and grandma cvs

The point is; Are you not writing tests because you chose not to, or is it because when you were learning PHP the books/teachers you were learning from didn't make testing a priority? i am willing to bet that the latter was the case. I sometimes don't write tests either, but when i was learning Ruby for example, you start by writing tests which was part of the whole learning, not an afterthought then, the real code, most Ruby books have this kind of convention, If you're going to release your code untested nobody will use it unless, well nobody you're sharing it with tests their code.

 

[Mtangoo]

You're right. It's latter. But I'm yet to fibd convincing reason yo do it even after learning it. The day I find reason to do it I'll definitely jump into it. Maybe share your experience on that?

 

[zech]

You're right. It's latter. But I'm yet to fibd convincing reason yo do it even after learning it. The day I find reason to do it I'll definitely jump into it. Maybe share your experience on that?

Can't share anything here, but you only need to use Wordpress to know how pathetic PHP development has been, the whole system itself is a bunch of horrible spaghetti, with plugins trying to kill each other. Every other plugin is breaking another plugin and crashing the whole system, and there's a millions of plugins released everyday without having tested code, creating a circle of never ending headaches, The sad fact is that Wordpress works and the community is proud to proclaim it 'the most used cms in the industry'. If anybody cared about their code, we'd never be having sleepless nights. Have you ever inherited a legacy Wordpress site? see how many times it gets hacked?, exactly!

 

[zech]

You can't hate a tool for allowing you to use it badly. It must be noted that, programming is not just a career, but a way of life, a lifestyle, you've to be passionate about it and not the type that must be enforced by a tool to become a good programmer.

You've to be the type that spends long hours learning new ways of making your programming skills better, making use of every known concept out there. Ensuring every line of code you write can be useful to others, and more importantly, can make sense to you one year later.
Making use of tools like PHPUnit for unit testing through the development cycle, taking precautions and ensuring security (develop defensively), incorporate helpful designing concepts such as DRY and ORM, Indent your code properly and use meaningful naming conventions, profile your code with tools such xdebug.....

I can go on and on, but my point is simply about taking charge as the developer, being mature and disciplined enough to be relied upon. Language/tool haters are just lazy-bums who find solace by blaming anything, there are also the so called "purists" who pretends to hate Python simply because it allows dynamic typing as opposed to "true languages" that enforces static typing such C and C++.

You might be one of the good guys, but sadly most of them are not, and we're having to maintain some of the mess they leave on the internet. I had to cut my Christmas holidays short last year because some PHP developer decided to do some Wordpress installation on a client's project with all its default malpractices, it wasn't a good experience i can tell you that.

 

[Mtangoo]

WordPress is a good example of abuse of PHP. I worked some time back to develop plugins and it was headache. Legacy code... Uh!

 

[MK254]

You might be one of the good guys, but sadly most of them are not, and we're having to maintain some of the mess they leave on the internet. I had to cut my Christmas holidays short last year because some PHP developer decided to do some Wordpress installation on a client's project with all its default malpractices, it wasn't a good experience i can tell you that.

Experiences and incidents do happen to shape us, change our way of looking at things. Until your ecommerce system gets hacked, you won't feel any need of using that extra few minutes enforcing security in your system. Or being called to add functionality to a system you developed a year ago, and you can't seem to even understand and comprehend your own code.

That's why it's always important to adhere to best practices, notwithstanding the language. Simple stuffs like indenting code, are enforced by Python, but as a programmer, should be your practice on every language.

 

[zech]

zech I don't write unit test or any other tests. I haven't found yet a convincing reason why I should do, so far. Am super debugger guy and can locate issues easily. May be you can convince me today.
I version my stuff though. I know its super important. And git is cooler than old good svn and grandma cvs

Most of us also work remotely on projects around the world, If you're not testing your code, you are doomed or you may not even get a gig, well tested code has always been one of the criteria, its good practice making sure your code does what's its expected to do.

 

[MK254]

WordPress is a good example of abuse of PHP. I worked some time back to develop plugins and it was headache. Legacy code... Uh!

I am not an expert on WordPress, apart from putting up a few websites with it. But I believe as a developer, it's your responsibility to ensure every plugin you develop meets every possible security requirements. The system core comes loaded with security, but the moment you begin to install plugins left right with abandon, that's when things gets murky.

Very important to test and test, I am an expert in Joomla, and have always been sensitive before installing any extension, must ensure all possible vulnerabilities are sealed. Even when developing my own extension, has to pass all possible tests before putting it live.

 

[kind2]

Tumia BuiltWith - Web Technology Profiler kujua webapp imetumia technology gani

 

[Mtangoo]

I am not an expert on WordPress, apart from putting up a few websites with it. But I believe as a developer, it's your responsibility to ensure every plugin you develop meets every possible security requirements. The system core comes loaded with security, but the moment you begin to install plugins left right with abandon, that's when things gets murky.

Mossack Fonseca Breach - WordPress Revolution Slider Plugin Possible Cause - Wordfence