Is php still the defactor standard for web apps in Linux?

[Train]

MS was passive about Mono until silverlight, which they wanted to run on OSX and Linux, and the quickest way to do that was to use a runtime that had already been in the works for years. At that point they handed over their entire set of .Net test cases to Novell to help them push .Net runtime to other platforms.

http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=31013

MS has promised no restrictions on developers who want to use .Net, and has even put it in legally binding writting: http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/community-promise/default.aspx

Even better, when MS releases code, they usually do so under an MIT license, which is much less restrictive than the GPL

All that is kinda dying out now since MS has shifted a lot of attention from Silverlight to HTML 5 and javascript anyway. That dirty, proprietary, HTML 5 and javascript

 

[Red Squirrel]

I just don't like using closed source languages and frameworks.
So that when I run into a bug or am doing unconventional things with it, I don't have to guess how the code I'm calling works and go through massive trial and error sessions trying to figure it out, I can just read it (or modify it).

This and the support is much better on open source since even if I don't want to dig through the code, a lot of other people have and can help.

I'm not really anti MS, it's just if I'm going to pick a platform, I want it to be completely free/open source and not dependent on a single company. I would have to learn more .net some day as it is valuable to learn, but for my own stuff I rather use something open source.

 

[sourceninja]

I use php everyday at my job. I don't think I'll stop using php for at least the next 3-5 years. There is just no reason to switch. The language is mature, if you are a good program you can write good php. I still use python for system administration tasks, and we have a few services that had to be written in java for compatibility reasons. Also, our ERP product recently announced a rewrite in groovy, so I have a feeling we will be using a lot of groovy in the future.

I'd rather use what I already know than spend my time trying to learn the idiosyncrasies of a language I'm not familiar with. With a good framework and php I can knock out solid, professional work very quickly. I've never understood how people can be down a language. Ruby, java, php, python, etc all provide upsides and downsides to writing web applications.

That said, for personal projects, I'm starting to really like javascript on both the server and client side.

 

[yllus]

Because of WordPress and a few other apps that honestly run a huge amount of the Internet, PHP will be around for a decade yet. We're actually starting to see a shift back to Java and C++ because of performance concerns that throwing ever larger amounts of hardware can't fix.

.Net is free, and runs on free OS's

Yeah, but you'd be silly to run .NET on anything other than Windows and MS SQL if planning something mission critical. I've run my fair share of .NET applications on MySQL and PostgreSQL but the big stuff? I'd not be doing my job properly if I didn't insist on the significant licence investment in MS SQL and Windows Server.

 

[Leros]

One thing that seems nice about using a language like C# or Java is that you can standardize it across a company. The place I work at uses Java for just about everything: web development, backend services, offline tools, computational cluster, data-mining tools, etc.

This way, any developer can work on anything without needing to become proficient in a new language, new tools, new libraries, etc.

 

[Train]

Because of WordPress and a few other apps that honestly run a huge amount of the Internet, PHP will be around for a decade yet. We're actually starting to see a shift back to Java and C++ because of performance concerns that throwing ever larger amounts of hardware can't fix.



Yeah, but you'd be silly to run .NET on anything other than Windows and MS SQL if planning something mission critical. I've run my fair share of .NET applications on MySQL and PostgreSQL but the big stuff? I'd not be doing my job properly if I didn't insist on the significant licence investment in MS SQL and Windows Server.

That's just silly, if MySql or PostGre can be run on large apps, there's no reason you have to use MSSQL just because you are using .Net

 

[velvetpants]

MS was passive about Mono until silverlight, which they wanted to run on OSX and Linux, and the quickest way to do that was to use a runtime that had already been in the works for years. At that point they handed over their entire set of .Net test cases to Novell to help them push .Net runtime to other platforms.

http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=31013

MS has promised no restrictions on developers who want to use .Net, and has even put it in legally binding writting: http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/community-promise/default.aspx

Even better, when MS releases code, they usually do so under an MIT license, which is much less restrictive than the GPL

All that is kinda dying out now since MS has shifted a lot of attention from Silverlight to HTML 5 and javascript anyway. That dirty, proprietary, HTML 5 and javascript

Hah... silverlight... I forgot that existed 😀
I remember that case now though, when you mention it.

Maybe I need to pay more attention to what MS is doing.

Still, call it fud, but it's always gonna be in Microsoft's best interest to keep developers working on their precious Windows, so they will do what they can (without losing face) to keep people there.

Javascript isn't proprietary. It's an ECMA standard and the most widely used JS engines are open source.

 

[Train]

Hah... silverlight... I forgot that existed 😀
I remember that case now though, when you mention it.

Maybe I need to pay more attention to what MS is doing.

Still, call it fud, but it's always gonna be in Microsoft's best interest to keep developers working on their precious Windows, so they will do what they can (without losing face) to keep people there.

Javascript isn't proprietary. It's an ECMA standard and the most widely used JS engines are open source.

The HTML 5/JavaScript comment was obviously sarcastic. If all MS wants is to lock developers on windows, that doesn't really explain why they have put so much faith in HTML5 and JS for Windows 8 now does it? Or why they added support for php and node.js on Windows Azure?

And since I'm assuming you dont already know. C# is an ECMA standard as well.

A little knowledge goes a long way

 

[dwell]

Well, development for Windows 8 relies extensively on Windows Javascript libraries as well as the Windows Runtime. Not sure how much of that is open source, but honestly nobody is going to use a MS Javascript library on another platform when there are so many good open-source alternatives.

 

[Train]

Well, development for Windows 8 relies extensively on Windows Javascript libraries as well as the Windows Runtime. Not sure how much of that is open source, but honestly nobody is going to use a MS Javascript library on another platform when there are so many good open-source alternatives.

that library is for accessing windows itself, everything else is the same stuff that will run in a browser.

 

[velvetpants]

If all MS wants is to lock developers on windows, that doesn't really explain why they have put so much faith in HTML5 and JS for Windows 8 now does it?

That has nothing to do with cross platform. Like dwell said, people won't be using the MS libraries on other platforms and obviously MS seem to have figured out how wasteful it is to be constantly re-inventing the wheel instead of using existing technologies that are already in active development.
They might contribute some chunks here and there since they're not losing anything by it and they've already written the code for their own purposes. Lets them look like one of the "good guys" without making any extra effort.

 

[Train]

Do tell, what existing JS libraries are there to access the Windows API? Especially an API to an interface (Metro) that has never existed on the desktop/tablet before? I'm sure MS would be very interested to know what wheel the are reinventing here.

MS Web platforms (such as the recently open sourced MVC) come with jQuery out of the box.

 

[dwell]

that library is for accessing windows itself, everything else is the same stuff that will run in a browser.

True but even the simplest Metro app example is entirely dependent on the WinJS libraries.

Saying Windows 8 is open because you can do the UX using HTML5 and Javascript is sort of like saying Win32 is open because you can code it in C++.

 

[Train]

True but even the simplest Metro app example is entirely dependent on the WinJS libraries.

Saying Windows 8 is open because you can do the UX using HTML5 and Javascript is sort of like saying Win32 is open because you can code it in C++.

OMG, not a proprietary CSS tag!

I never said Win8 itself was open sourced. But MS adopting two standard technologies for app dev on it's flagship product kinda flies in the face of the vendor lock in card Linux fanboys keep playing, doesn't it?

 

[dwell]

OMG, not a proprietary CSS tag!

I never said Win8 itself was open sourced. But MS adopting two standard technologies for app dev on it's flagship product kinda flies in the face of the vendor lock in card Linux fanboys keep playing, doesn't it?

There's a lot more going on there than CSS tags. It looks like the data binding, XHR calls, event handling, widgets, etc. all rely on Windows libraries (both Javascript and CSS).

I mean, OS X programming is all Objective-C based, which is open, but that code won't run at all on other platforms just like all this Metro stuff.

Not sure what your point is really.

 

[Train]

There's a lot more going on there than CSS tags. It looks like the data binding, XHR calls, event handling, widgets, etc. all rely on Windows libraries (both Javascript and CSS).

I mean, OS X programming is all Objective-C based, which is open, but that code won't run at all on other platforms just like all this Metro stuff.

Not sure what your point is really.

Well then that is not the simplest metro app. You can take an existing HTML 5 and JS app and run it as a metro app with zero modification.

The point is the vendor lock in claim that may have applied 10 years ago does not apply today. Just because you haven't paid attention, does not make old facts current.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've been thinking deeper and reading up more and think I will actually stick with php. I may still look at Ruby just to at least try it, but while php may have stagnated and has some disadvantages, it also has lot of advantages, such as no real big requirements on how the environment is setup, and while it does let you write sloppy code, does not mean you have to write sloppy code. If I structure stuff properly and think things out I can still make clean code.

Since I know php fairly well now, it makes more sense for me to rebuild my stuff in php and adopt some of the existing code that's good, and improve the rest, rather than rebuild it all from very scratch.

 

[sourceninja]

Groovy training was informative today, but it seems to suffer from "more than one way to do it" syndrome. Also, inconsistent behaviors ( like sort vs reverse on collections). Overall though, I like it.