
The new php.net - jbyers
http://www.php.net/?setbeta=1&beta=1
======
DigitalSea
This is definitely a welcome change. Doesn't really stray too far from the
previous design really, it feels cleaner and a lot more modern. I think PHP's
lack of nicely designed site doesn't do them any favours in the language wars
though considering PHP is viewed as an old and inferior language to others.

~~~
DigitalSea
I'd just like to clarify instead of responding to the 100 deep comment thread
below that I actually use PHP everyday and love the language. The comment
about the site was merely an opinion observing the fact that a lack of modern
looking website was fuel on the PHP fire. I actually love PHP and since
version 5.3 it has become inherently better and the PHP framework Laravel is
amazing.

~~~
fein
I'm more of a Yii guy, but I'm in the same boat as you. I'm proud to work with
php every day, despite the online hate.

5.3 was the big break, 5.4 gave us $this in closures, and 5.5 fixed the age
old password hashing issues while dropping generators in my lap.

Exciting times :)

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astrodust
Less ugly, and yet not less ugly enough.

jQuery might've over-done it a bit with their most recent refresh, but that's
a better example of what could be done.

The search feature, for instance, is complete garbage. If I'm typing in a
method name, give me that method, not this:
[http://ca2.php.net/results.php?q=mysql_query&l=en&p=all](http://ca2.php.net/results.php?q=mysql_query&l=en&p=all)

Is it so hard to do something like auto-complete? Wikipedia and many other API
references do this.

~~~
Domenic_S
Read this without snark: do people use on-site search anymore? I and every dev
I work with either googles function names or uses hinting in an IDE. Granted,
that's a relatively small sample size.

~~~
PavlovsCat
At least using Opera or FF, you can just right-click any text input and create
a search from it, so entering "php blah" in the address bar would search
php.net for "blah". So yes, I use it on-site searches all the time. Why google
for "foobar wikipedia" when I can just enter "wp foobar"? :)

~~~
dropawaywaytogo
I was doing the same until I realized that googling or binging (let's not rely
on google too much) is most of the times faster than using php.net's own
search engine. Plus, you're not limited to function names and you don't have
to spell them correctly to find the right result.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Fair enough, but I still think that on-site search is desirable in general and
many cases. I get that it's too much hassle for small sites, but for bigger
ones, I wish they'd at least offer "bingle custom search" additional to their
own. Completely outsourcing that is a step back to me, but then again I don't
have to pay for the servers so I'll shut up now :D

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joeframbach
Bad practices right from the get-go.

<?php echo '<p>Hello World</p>'; ?>

ought to be

<p><?php echo 'Hello World'; ?></p>

I swear this is the cause of so many "Too Localized" issues on StackOverflow,
due to nesting quotes within quotes and getting lost in tags. Echoing html
makes things too difficult for beginners.

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martin-adams
As someone who uses the PHP documentation all the time, I do wonder if the
increased line spacing in the code examples and user comments are going to be
a little off putting.

But great to see an improvement on the whole.

~~~
nish1500
Precisely what I thought. The docs should be made more compact.

~~~
g8oz
Thats a big problem with the redesign of the online jQuery docs as well.

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C1D
Looks very nice but isn't that responsive. It looks a little messed up on my
iPad.

~~~
ziodave
I was literally surprised to see that the web site is not responsive.

~~~
coob
Neither is apple.com

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bbayer
There are still couple of UX problems. For instance once you click an item on
upper menu, the section which initially has download and tutorial links is
disappeared. There is no way to bring it back to original state. Also again in
top menu selected color and hover color is same and confuses user.

Also in some inner pages like this one
[http://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php](http://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php)
left block is empty and page looks like misaligned. It might be better to
borrow some ideas from Sphinx generated documentation style.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _For instance once you click an item on upper menu, the section which
> initially has download and tutorial links is disappeared. There is no way to
> bring it back to original state._

Load the page, with the tutorial block showing. Look under the PHP logo. See
the purple "active" indicator underneath (obviously you do, because you
commented on it)? To restore the original state, click the PHP icon.

~~~
bbayer
Yes, we can definitely restore original state by clicking on logo but I guess
expected behavior is not reloading page. It supposed to update section like
other items do.

------
pavs
I just started learning php (my first programming language). I am reading
Oreilly's Programming PHP 3rd Edition.

Can anyone give me any tips?

(please don't suggest other programming language, I have wasted countless
hours trying to decide. I will eventually try to learn other languages but
decided to start with php for now. My main interest is webapps, so it would
seem that php is the most popular - and easy - choice.)

~~~
vec
First, resist the urge to put code in your templates. Because the syntax is
the same, it's very tempting to just declare a function or do a query in the
middle of your HTML. You'll be happier in the long run if you don't ever get
into that habit to begin with. PHP actually recognizes both .php and .phtml as
valid file extensions.

I personally try to follow a couple basic rules. .php files should be a single
<?php ?> block with nothing outside it, and .phtml files shouldn't use
anything but if, foreach, and already defined variables. You'll end up with
code that's both cleaner and better structured.

Second, if at all possible avoid Wordpress until you've already got a firm
grasp of the language. Wordpress itself has a few decisions that made sense in
PHP 4 but are terrible practice now (like using global functions instead of
classes) and a few others that, while not technically wrong, were questionable
even then (the loop). On top of that, the quality of code in third party
themes and plugins varies wildly. If you copy the techniques you see there,
you'll learn some awesome tricks, but you'll also learn every bad practice in
the book. Until you've got enough experience to recognize the difference,
you'll do yourself more harm than good.

~~~
Joeboy
> First, resist the urge to put code in your templates

Unless things have changed since I last looked, PHP files are all templates.
Last time I used PHP, with symphony, I actually thought PHP was a pretty
reasonable templating system.

~~~
lacksconfidence
so, just choosing a random file off github, is this a template?

[https://github.com/symfony/Process/blob/master/PhpProcess.ph...](https://github.com/symfony/Process/blob/master/PhpProcess.php)

Or in other words, php files are only templates if you use them that way.

~~~
Joeboy
If I have, say, a jinja2 template that only contains logic and outputs
nothing, is it a template? I would say it is. By which reasoning, yes that php
file is also a template. Even if you've got used to pretending it isn't.

Having said which, I'm confused by the lack of a closing ?>. Maybe PHP's
parser lets you get away with that though.

~~~
krapp
_Having said which, I 'm confused by the lack of a closing ?>. Maybe PHP's
parser lets you get away with that though._

It's completely optional.

~~~
vec
...and best practice is to omit it. Since PHP is a templating language any
whitespace (other than a single newline) that comes after the ?> will be
printed directly to stdout when the file is parsed, which is almost never what
the author intends. Letting the parser insert it for you avoids this class of
bugs.

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chaffneue
I like the concept. White layout with bigger, more readable blocks and less
wasted space above the fold, but some of the fun they had with the footer and
javascript on the page should probably be dropped to make the page load a bit
smoother and yeah mobile has definitely not been considered or tested against.
I also wonder if these pages are completely dynamic as they seem to load very
slowly even in a logged out state.

Side by side speed comparison:

[http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2859/9133368868_54f4a8cabb_h.j...](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2859/9133368868_54f4a8cabb_h.jpg)

[http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3700/9131157097_923af39b1b_h.j...](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3700/9131157097_923af39b1b_h.jpg)

Iphone rendering:

[http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7402/9133398088_4cd5d18661_b.j...](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7402/9133398088_4cd5d18661_b.jpg)

[http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7288/9131186519_b00acc38a0_b.j...](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7288/9131186519_b00acc38a0_b.jpg)

~~~
RutZap
Just out of curiosity, why would you go on php.net on an iPhone?

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girvo
New redesign is great :)

Screw anyone who rags on PHP. Since 5.3, it's been one of the nicer languages
I've ever used, and I'm exceedingly productive in it.

The best part? I can work in Brisbane, and get paid well for it. Not too many
Ruby jobs around, or anything other than .Net and a little bit of Java.

~~~
keyle
Oh there is plenty of Java going around Brisie... :)

~~~
girvo
I try to ignore it ;)

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ineedtosleep
Wow. Definitely not a fan.

I don't know if it's because it's "new", but the readability on documentation
pages got worse. It's like I'm better off using (e)links to handle php.net
searches.

~~~
qw
I agree. It's hard to say exactly what they should improve, but I feel that it
takes more time to find what I need. Perhaps they should add some colour to
give better contrast.

------
dylan-m
Is it weird that my first observation is that their navigation requires
Javascript to function? Because it does: clicking Documentation, Community or
Help doesn't get you anywhere, and there's no other way to get to those pages.
Also, the website can't seem to decide if its URLs should look like
php.net/conferences or php.net/downloads.php.

With the negativity out of the way: MUCH nicer looking site. I look forward to
using it the next time I find myself having to write PHP :)

------
jayfolny
I love PHP, I really do. It's a blinding mess of built-in functions as well as
horror due to the incredible shoestorm one needs to create with it to make
decent things work. I don't however like the "new" php.net. It's been a year
in the making or so, if I'm not mistaking - not only that, it's 5 years in the
past, which I guess is better than the previous design, but the "future"
comment is just plain wrong.

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csomar
The menu is not usable for me. It seems like my screen is too small and yet
I'm on a 1920px width screen.

The documentation pages are broken too _. I guess the flat and typographical
design is meant to improve the reading experience and not just for the sake of
flatness.

_
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2777218/Sans%20titre.png](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2777218/Sans%20titre.png)

~~~
Domenic_S
Screenshot without browser chrome and url chopped out. You must work in QA ;)

I kid, I kid. Honestly that just looks like a broken page to me. Shift-reload?

~~~
deepdog
I have the same problem too on Linux. I've found it is fixed by removing the
padding-right on the logo and I've tried telling them that on the mailing
list. No one will believe me though even if though I have multiple pictures
documenting the fact. =/

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lartza
I wonder what
[http://www.php.net/?setbeta=0&beta=1](http://www.php.net/?setbeta=0&beta=1)
and
[http://www.php.net/?setbeta=1&beta=0](http://www.php.net/?setbeta=1&beta=0)
does?

Oh it breaks the site so that you can't enable the beta at all anymore without
resetting cookies.

edit: It's just that all mirrors aren't up to date

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philliphaydon
Would be nice if I could see it. They have this banner at the top:

Step into the future! Click here to switch to the beta php.net site.

Page just refreshes. Tried deleting all my cookies, didn't help.

Edit: Tried in IE10, Firefox, Chrome. I've never visited php.net on this
computer before. IMO site is fail since they can't even get their beta site
access feature working.

~~~
ohwp
Same here. I think it's because I don't accept third-party cookies.

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TimGremalm
I checked archive.org, the previous design is from 2001.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20010401091809/http://php.net/](http://web.archive.org/web/20010401091809/http://php.net/)

------
ing33k
Definitely a welcome news , design looks modern yet the old look and feel is
preserved. keep aside the language wars, people who just want to get things
done still use php while others keep on bashing how it sucks .

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grandpoobah
The 'Begin Tutorial' button looks like something out of Windows 3.1.

~~~
shire
I didn't notice that until you mentioned it, darn now I am scarred

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quchen
Changing the font size dismembers the design. It's like it's 2005 again, where
everyone had the same screen resolution, and pixel-based layouts were thought
to be good webdesign.

~~~
RutZap
Yeah, that's sadly true; Though, the fix would be quite simple, put a
clear:both; on the #layout div.

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nachteilig
Am I missing it, or do they not have an option to see the PHP source of the
website anymore? I always thought that was a neat feature to have for a
language's website.

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brvs
This new, rejuvenated website, along with PHP's sexy new language features
really seal the deal for me. I have to say, PHP is officially cool again. -sp

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skyebook
Does anyone else think that the best way to promote PHP would be to have a
home page that doesn't take 240ms of processing before it starts to download?

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Nux
Right, so move from a site that can use the whole width of my frickin wide
monitor (nevermind efficiency) to one that doesn't - but it's shiny!

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kleiba
The landing page looks pretty good I think. When I first looked at the site I
had JavaScript turned off, and I think it looked even better that way.

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ukandy
It's a bit wide for my taste. I think that fixed width (max width at least)
would have have been appropriate here.

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EGreg
Some of this is good, but in a way, PHP is going the way of C++ ... adding
lambdas and the kitchen sink.

~~~
iso8859-1
PHP was kitchen sink from the beginning. Only the kitchen sink was in the
library and not the language. I'd rather have it like this.

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shire
Breath of fresh air.

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sas1ni69
At least they know the previous one was fugly.

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dewiz
the new php.net...

...has not been tested on Safari (ipad2 here)

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kyriakos
a welcome refresh

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danbruc
Did they use PHP to build it? ^^

~~~
camus
dont worry , they used JEE so you can feel secure.

~~~
danbruc
We are using JEE in our current project - I am not yet sure if I want to trust
that thing...

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alekseyk
They are trying WAY too hard to be like other sites and copied a lot of
elements but under no vision or creative guidance new design looks horrible.

Old one was at least professional and to the point, this one is pure garbage
and looks like a web site for a grape drink.

~~~
RutZap
I understand where you're coming from; the php.net website is by no means
beautiful and the design does lack creativity, BUT, I think that the main
purpose of this site is information and no looks. It's all about the
documentation and the code examples and the comments. It's a site for a
programming language, we don't need beautiful design, animations transitions
or any other eye-candy. I think that even the flikr footer is superfluous and
we could do without it.

The most important thing is how information is structured and how easy it is
to get to it; and from that point of view I am very pleased with the new
website. It's a lot easier to read through than the old one and a lot easier
to find what you need.

~~~
alekseyk
I don't find it easier at all, the purple blocks / elements overwhelm the
content.

The old site looks way better for 'information consuming' than the new
version.

My two cents.

