Can a Perl Programmer Pick up PHP quickly?

[A. Sinan Unur]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in @fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

I remember using one of the earliest versions of PHP years ago...
it was basically only a means of adding a counter and similar
things to web pages. Obviously it has grown since then but
with no overall plan except adding new features.

Indeed. http://us2.php.net/history might be of interest.

Sinan

 

[John Bokma]

No. My point is, a lot of the perl docs from days gone by document
perl subs as having a '&'. Now they don't.

Now they have when the side effect of it are required. And "days gone"
is over 10 years.

To design _software_ you need to learn a lot.
Yup

To learn a language and JUST the language, PHP is easier. Sounds like
you're talking about software design.

And sounds like you're talking about learning the syntax. Sure, one can
learn PHP syntax in a day or 2.

I suppose it's rather like any human language, learning english
doesn't mean it's easy to describe the components and interactions
of a complex system.

So we are talking about syntax then. Learning the syntax of a language
is something I wouldn't call learning a language.

Yea, I'd agree. PHP hasn't gotten that slow yet!

Is that why you either have to buy stuff to speed it up (the commercial
part of PHP), or get a free version?

Probably because easy languages, as you point out are really not that
good.

I didn't say that. I doubt an easy programming language is possible. I
have done RISC (ARM) assembly language. The instruction set is extremely
orthogonal. Easy to learn? Well, you can learn all instructions in a
day. But programming in ARM easy? No.

BASIC has been around for quite some time, as has REXX. Sure, they're
easy (well, if you believe there are easy languages, they're easy) but
they're very difficult to do any real work in, which is why you don't
often see REXX being used to write video games.

I can only speak for BASIC, and I don't call BASIC an easy language. I
don't know any easy to learn programming languages. (Similar with human
languages btw).

 

[usenet]

I think it was Randal who said, "PHP is like training wheels without
the bicycle"
(or something pretty close to that).

I think that sums it up pretty well. PHP has some nice things to make
programming easy, as long as you're writing easy programs.

 

[usenet]

I think it was Randal who said, "PHP is like training wheels without
the bicycle"
(or something pretty close to that).

I think that sums it up pretty well. PHP has some nice things to make
programming easy, as long as you're writing easy programs.

 

[Matija Papec]

X-Ftn-To: Mladen Gogala

Oprosti sto nisam odgovorio, ali reader mi se cudno ponasa pa nisam prije
vidio poruku.

Ah, another PHP hater, and a countryman at that. No, no struggling is
necessary. PHP is easier to learn then perl. Much easier to learn. On the

I don't see who claimed otherwise, of course it's easier to learn php; the
question is how far can you go with that knowledge? The page above shows the
php4 traps which are actually facts and are not subject to somebody personal
preferences (eg. liking/disliking over syntax/language philosophy).

other hand, for the CLI environment, perl rulz. I started with perl few
weeks ago, when subroutines were called with "&" and curent version was
perl 4.0.36. As an oracle DBA, I used oraperl variety, a predecessor to
DBI/DBD::Oracle. It was 1995. PHP5 was a breeze to pick: no @ISA, no
$AUTOLOAD, no tie, no hidden first arguments, just classes, methods and
inheritance, the way they're meant to be.

There is a price tag for power and it all depends if you'll need it and if
you are ready to pay for it. I agree that perl OO isn't the best thing out
there but personally, I would rather embrace demanding but consistent
language over non consistent and unexpectedly behaving one.
I think that python/ruby/java folks would also agree on that, and they don't
have much in common.
"Let those who have the ears to hear - hear.."

PHP functions are, on the other hand, well documented, books are complete,

I'll strongly disagree on documentation as it lacks completeness. As an
illustration to that, there are many user comments(threads actually) below
documentation that deals with solving various gotchas.

unlike "Learning Perl", which skips things like references, packages and
objects. To learn Perl, you need at least 3 books: "Learning Perl",
"Programming Perl" and Conway's OO Perl. It is much easier to learn PHP
then to learn Perl.

Yes, but it's also easier to learn logo then php.
imho, so long as your tool can do what you want, there is no need to change
it.

On the other hands, Perl has formats, and PHP has
nothing like a built-in report writer. I love both Perl and PHP, PHP for
the web, Perl for CLI. Perl with its arcane secrets and tricks that can be
learned only through the word of mouth

So, Conway did tell you everything in person as it also did to me?
perldoc perl, and perldoc perltie looks enough

and bizarre mechanisms like "tie"

afaik, there is nobody forcing anybody to use ties or similar. Ties are
transparent to user and exist to make life easier if you need it, but you
can also live long and well without them.

is much, much harder to learn. This comes from someone who uses both perl
and PHP. That page is rubbish. For the real PHP hater page look for the

I don't know if author of that page hates php or not, but there are some
real arguments which stand equally in all emotional contexts.