Re: The future of PHP

At 23:02 26-08-01, Manuel Lemos wrote:

I don't think we have the same understanding of what is marketing. For me, marketing is being proactive in terms of promoting something before the potential market. Seeing people advocating PHP or analysts covering PHP here and there is not proactive at all. It is a result of the evolution of PHP capabilities, but it was not something that was especifically planned.

Well, that's not quite true. The analysts that are beginning to show interest are a result of efforts being made in certain companies. As for advocating, I specifically mentioned companies and not people, which is what makes it pro-active. I think our definitions for marketing are quite similar :)

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). I don't know what drawbacks do you see, but let's discuss it openly.

Well, not all of the sites are of the same quality and enjoy the same maintenance level. Such sites may have a good audience and may be a good service, but they won't necessarily do a good job at presenting PHP. They may (will) also overlap in content, which would also not look very professional either. Things like that are usually not that simple, or in other words, they're easier said than done. If done sloppily, they can have a negative effect. And doing them correctly requires substantial efforts.

Ok, it is not fading out, but it is fading, meaning it is no longer the exciting thing that it seemed to be and was attracting some many people from everywhere.

I disagree even with the toned-down version :) I think that the Web as a medium is one of the most promising infrastructures around. True, the hype is gone, but that's a good thing. I don't think the hype moved anywhere else, it's just gone (for now :)

It is not a matter of loosing that focus, but rather enlarge the focus of PHP that is adverstised for things that some people are already using it seriously.

By definition of the word focus (well, almost), there's no real way to 'enlarge' it without losing it. We can play with words forever, though :)

Anyway, lets just concentrate on the Web development focus. Web development is not just Web scripts that are served by the Web server. Web development is also, installing and maitaining applications and also run processes that run separately from the Web server. You know you can run PHP from the command line to do things like run database installation scripts or run cron scripts that execute periodic tasks. The truth is that most people are not aware of this. They think PHP can only be run from the Web server to serve Web pages. I was suprised by the number of people that was telling me that Perl is better for running scripts from the command line. Duh?! Why? Because nobody told them otherwise! This very wrong perception of the current PHP user base needs urgent fixing! The fix needs not to be applied in PHP, but rather in PHP users minds. PHP needs to be advertised as tool than can run scripts from anywhere, like any other language. For starters, drop the designation of PHP CGI version.

Could be. The truth is that PHP *is* lacking in command line features if you compare it to Perl, because it was indeed never brought up to be a command line tool...

If people are already using PHP that way for serious purposes, why neglect that it can be used that way? That only lets other languages take over a space that PHP has already conquered.

I'm not saying it won't happen, but I've yet to see projects like PHP-GTK being used 'seriously'. To make it clearer, I've yet to see an application which is actually written in PHP-GTK, and is being distributed or sold. The day may come, but unlike the Web ring where we hold a huge chunk, I find it very hard to imagine seeing PHP taking a considerable chunk of the GUI market, ever.

The way I see, most people tend to only use one language at once. If they see an alternative to PHP not only serves well for Web programming, but also for non-Web programming, PHP will loose its user base there. It is a matter of time until a lot of PHP people will start seeing it that way.

It's really an issue of different opinions. I think our focus should remain on the Web ring, because we can't enlarge it without losing it. We can foster additional projects, such as PHP-GTK, improved command line features, etc., but the way I see it, if you want to define PHP in one sentence, the best qualifying one would still be 'A Server Side, HTML Embedded Scripting Language' (sorry Andrei ;). It's true that it can be used in other ways, but that's the focus, and the rest are useful 'exceptions'.

No, I mean executables that may be just like VB executables that basically contain PHP code compiled into Zend bytecodes or whatever is enough for most people be stopped from copy source code directly. A lot of people give up PHP because it does not provide affordable conditions to let them sell whole applications that others can't still their code, when they can just spend only US$100 or less in VB, Delphi, Java, Kylix, etc... suite and compile programs that they can distribute or sell to others without risking their business. There are a lot more other things to say on these subjects, but these should give you enough to think for a while. :-)

Thank you :) Zeev