Re: The future of PHP

> there. There are too many languages in the world, including ones which are > much more capable than PHP in the GUI programming area, and if we move the > focus to this front, we're going to fight a lost battle. In the Web front, > on the other hand, we're doing quite well. This is the main reason I like PHP so much. It was build for the web and it grows with the web. If that focus is kept, PHP will survive. I do not see PHP surpassing Java or .NET, but it will be there and will outperform those two! py > At 05:36 26-08-01, Manuel Lemos wrote: > >The first problem is technical. You just keep developing PHP to satisfy > >the user needs as soon as you perceive them and that's it. > > I think we're doing that nicely, but it's quite true that meeting the > technical needs is not enough. > > >The second problem is marketing. It doesn't matter for people that have > >to make the decisions how much better PHP in fact is if people don't > >hear about it. Even if they hear about it, it may not be enough if they > >hear much more from the rest (Java, ASP.Net, C#, , whatever). > > > >Here PHP looses bigtime. You may not want to believe me, but I am afraid > >that unless PHP is better marketted, soon or later its market acceptance > >will be weakened. > > I think you're right here also, but only to a degree. PHP has reached (or > is quite close) to the critical mess it needs to penetrate the suite of > 'accepted solutions'. As in, solutions which are covered by analysts and > that exist within large organizations. It's true that it took it some 5 > years or so to make this penetration (and it took .NET about -2 years), but > that is the price you pay when you don't have gigantic marketing budgets to > compete with. Undoubtfully this is a problem, but the bottom line appears > to be that we managed to overcome this, despite the lack of resources. > > >That's not my point. Some marketing is better than no marketing at all > >which is what you do today. There are plenty of ways to do some > >marketing on PHP that don't even cost money to you. > > I don't think it's fair to say that there's no marketing today. Well, > forget fair, but I don't think it's accurate either :) There are several > good PHP sites, and there are a few companies advocating PHP as > well. Analysts are starting to cover PHP, and it's a fairly important > landmark in PHP's penetration to the family of industry-adopted solutions. > > At any rate, suggestions will be welcome. I've seen the Web Developer Ring > you suggested, and I think it's worth thinking (the reason I'm not going > wild with enthusiasm is that I think it also has drawbacks, not only > advantages). > > >oh, man Linux was a different story. Expecting a similar future for PHP > >I'm afraid it may be wishful thinking. PHP is mostly focused on Web > >development. Web market is fading out. > > I agree with the first part of the paragraph, but completely disagree with > the 2nd. Web is not fading out, the .COM era is. Web, as a medium, is > here to stay, and on the long run, it's going to grow to be much larger > than what it is today. > > As for the similarities and dissimilarities of PHP and Linux, I think it's > fair to say that it's pretty difficult to predict the way things will go > with PHP in the enterprise, but I doubt it'll happen in a similar way to > that of Linux. Linux 'made it' when huge corporations like IBM started > using it and advocating it, after smaller companies (like RedHat) managed > to create enough hype to 'wake the giants'. It's unlikely that such a > giant will make the same choice with PHP, even if we just look at it from a > statistical perspective. > > >Even if you can do non Web programming with PHP, most people are not > >aware of that. You need to do some marketing to put in evidence that PHP > >is as much capable for non-Web programming. > > Given the fact that I don't see the Web going anywhere, I strongly > disagree. PHP's strength is in its focus to provide a good Web development > framework. Losing that focus would be a bad idea. > Projects like PHP-GTK are nice and for certain audiences they're also quite > useful, but it's very wrong to assume that PHP's future lies in > there. There are too many languages in the world, including ones which are > much more capable than PHP in the GUI programming area, and if we move the > focus to this front, we're going to fight a lost battle. In the Web front, > on the other hand, we're doing quite well. > > >There you have another big problem that is there is no affordable way to > >compile and generate executables from PHP programs. I know that > >historically you never liked this ability into PHP programs, but that is > >a vital need for people that will want to distribute their programs like > >VB or Delphi programs. > > If you mean native executables, then I have to disagree with you yet > again... I don't think native executables are the thing that's holding PHP > back. It's a direct deduction from my view that PHP's main course is the > Web environment, where native executables simply do not make sense. > If you mean something else, I'll be happy to discuss this with you over > personal email :) > > Zeev > > > -- > Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> > CTO & co-founder, Zend Technologies Ltd. > http://www.zend.com/ > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-general-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: php-general-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net >