
Why Hacker News Thinks PHP Won Something - gaika
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-hacker-news-thinks-php-won.html
======
jballanc
Without the disparaging remarks toward HN, this post would be much better.
Granted, I'm new here, but I feel like HN is more about embracing intelligent
discussion than embracing the "right way".

The fact that this post could raise a coherent counterpoint to the issue is
evidence enough of that.

~~~
Xichekolas
Giles is still angry that his post "Muppets" got downmodded a lot.
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=172894>)

I thought his criticism was valid though. (Not that he cares one bit! ;) ...
Both those articles started off assuming that PHP 'won' something, and then
tried to explain why by pointing out good things about PHP and its community.
Neither of them started by laying down the contest rules, examining all the
contenders, and picking a winner... They started with a winner and worked
backwards somehow into the aether.

On the other hand, if you just realize headlines are _by definition_ linkbait,
you can make the mental substitution of the phrase "became more popular than
any other toy language" for the word "won". Suddenly those articles make more
sense, even if they become less controversial (or insightful) in the process.

~~~
mattlyon
from talking to Giles (I work with him), I think his problem with hacker news
is that it's basically turning into another digg/reddit/slashdot type of
thing. It's basically a pool of links outlining what's popular with whoever
the users of the site are at the moment, and that group of people is likely to
change over time.

I think what would work better is a pool of links that shows you stuff you
might find interesting based on past usage (voting up/down, friending others,
etc). Don't show me what's interesting to everybody who reads the site, show
me what's interesting to _me_. As Giles has said in the past, I have a need
for better filtering mechanisms.

~~~
Xichekolas
Ah. I come here mostly for the discussion. It's honestly quite rare that the
actual link is that interesting to me. In fact, the commentary here is
probably the only thing that really differentiates it from Reddit/Digg.

But if he wants content personalized, Stumbleupon might be a good avenue.

~~~
mark_h
I come here mostly for the discussion. It's honestly quite rare that the
actual link is that interesting to me.

I've been finding exactly the same thing, actually. Usually when I upvote it's
because the discussion is interesting, rather than the article.

I don't really have a problem with that though; reddit et al can provide links
in topics of immediate interest, but the community still differentiates HN
IMO.

------
greendestiny
I don't understand this article. I think it wouldn't have gotten as much
interest without the meta-hacker news aspect, and I'd much rather see less of
that stuff than less about PHP.

The thing thats most wrong with this article is the author understands exactly
what the other authors meant. I don't think they were attaching any more
meaning to word 'won' than having the most users. Something this author
doesn't dispute. Communication was successful, if you need to add extra
information about why you think PHP sucks then go ahead. It's not in conflict
with those other articles.

I doubt anyone's idea of won is: earns contract programmers more money. Even
here though the author contradicts himself in two ways: he says that PHP was
more popular because you didn't need headers, and that this meant the
"difference between driving a Honda and piloting a yacht". Then he claims that
PHP had no language advantages and earns you less money.

There is a lesson in there for language designers - keep making those simple
but common tasks easier, every little bit can make huge difference if its
multiplied by an economic shift.

~~~
zby
Yeah - this was simply trolling. But when you go through this - he actually
has one interesting argument about why PHP won the biggest market share - and
it is that it improved in just one aspect over the dominant language of that
time - Perl.

------
jjames
While I agree with the assertion that warm bodies organized around a specific
technology does not = win, I'm not certain that those are the only metrics for
success at play in these articles.

Take the case of the small startup without an inspired coder CTO which didn't
have time to wait for ruby or python programmers who went shopping for
contractors. PHP can get you far and fast (and often badly).

I was interviewed to lead technology in a place like this and they knew I'd
try to make them start over and abandon PHP (purist, longview). PHP had
provided them capability and in their mind clearly "won" (developers existed
and made themselves clearly visible on the market). They wouldn't have been in
business at that point if they had held out for something better.

------
tlrobinson
Just because an article with a subjective title gets voted up doesn't mean the
community necessarily agrees with it.

Unless you're on Reddit and the post is titled "Vote up if you think PHP
won!!!"

~~~
ars
Exactly. I upvote if I think it's interesting, even if I also think it's
wrong.

~~~
giles_bowkett
yeah but that's what bothers me. you've got a site founded by the guy who
wrote "The Python Paradox" and everybody there thinks it's interesting to
discuss PHP. come on! it doesn't matter if it's wrong or not. there is nothing
interesting about PHP. there's nothing to learn there. there's no story. even
my rant was just Economics 101.

trying to extract lessons from the design of PHP is like trying to win the
lottery by wearing a trucker hat because you saw some dude in a trucker hat
win the lottery. there's nothing there! you might as well be reading tea
leaves. which is what I said in the rant, but you didn't get the point. you
might as well be posting a picture of some tea leaves and then having a
discussion about that.

yes a good enough conversationalist can extract something meaningful from
_anything_ , and that's the real challenge I was after when I wrote the rant,
but if your goal is to write something interesting about what you saw on
Hacker News, let me tell you, Hacker News does not make it easy for you by
talking about PHP.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_there is nothing interesting about PHP_

Obviously people in this community feel that there is something interesting
there worth discussing. If you disagree, perhaps that implies that this
community isn't a good fit for you.

~~~
Xichekolas
Just because he disagrees doesn't mean he should go away.

There are lots of people that disagree in 'challenging ways', but if everyone
here saw everything the same way, there would be no discussion at all.

------
WilliamLP
"A commodity can only compete on location and price, and location doesn't
really get you much on the Internet."

I don't know why the author thinks PHP coding is somehow different from every
other kind of programming, and that there aren't huge differences between
programmers (we're talking orders of magnitude) as far as speed of output and
code quality go.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Yeah, Giles seems kind of confused about how the PHP ecosystem works. Those
"commodity" PHP programmers who flood the market with insanely low bids? As a
PHP programmer, they are not your problem. They are your _client's_ problem,
one that you can charge money to _solve_. Because it's really hard for a
client to find good developer talent among that huge crowd. Lord knows it
can't be done by screening resumes for keywords. So once you (the aspiring PHP
programmer) have done a bit of work and a bit of networking, and a handful of
established PHP folks have met you and filed your name in their contact lists
under _good PHP talent_ (a club that is really not _that_ hard to join) you're
likely to start getting leads. Leads who are willing to pay your price just to
avoid having to screen another 5,000 resumes.

Meanwhile, that army of "commodity" programmers will be out there,
energetically _growing the market for your services_ by bringing lots and lots
of new PHP-powered sites online. Every blogger who installs Wordpress, and
every school and church and magazine and music label that goes online with a
basic Drupal site, is a potential future customer.

Of course, just because PHP work pays decently and is easy to find doesn't
mean you'll enjoy it. There's a lot of pain involved in working with PHP,
particularly other people's PHP. (I ameliorate the pain somewhat by sticking
strictly to Drupal, which has higher coding standards and a better defined,
more modular structure than the average PHP newbie's code.) But the work is
certainly out there.

------
ryanwaggoner
_A commodity can only compete on location and price, and location doesn't
really get you much on the Internet._

I used to think this until I started freelancing, but it's _much_ easier to
get quality jobs if you can meet with the client face-to-face at the start of
the gig.

 _If you program only in the most popular programming language, you have made
yourself a commodity._

The author seems to think that one PHP programmer is just as good as the next,
but there's a whole litany of skills beyond just writing code in whatever
language that make someone desirable to a client or employer, from
communication to product design. Programmers are not cogs in a machine that
you can replace easily as long as you find one that speaks the right language.

------
zacharydanger
Giles seems to be operating on the assumption that you can't charge a
reasonable amount for PHP work. Does this imply that he views himself as a
commodity programmer? That if he were to be doing PHP work he'd be doing it at
the same caliber of an outsourced shop in India?

Of course if this Giles character knew anything about economics he would also
know that complementary products have complementary demand curves. So, the
more PHP applications out there means there's more demand for PHP programmers.

------
Tichy
Salary is not the only criterion - what if I mostly care about getting things
done, not about becoming employed? (Not that I would choose PHP anyway, but
still).

I am also not convinced that PHP just got lucky with the timing and that
therefore there are no language design lessons to be learned. Perhaps if you
get a noob into programming, they would still have an easier time with PHP
than with more modern MVC based frameworks, because it is more
straightforward. You still just write SQL directly in the code - it is messy,
but easier to grasp than having to work through all sorts of layers of
abstraction.

Maybe there IS a language lesson there - although I sure hope PHP is not the
final answer...

~~~
DougBTX
Perhaps not a "language lesson", but PHP has a great deployment story: upload
then refresh your browser.

PHP allows a strong separation between system administrator (who is running
Apache) and the "application developers" who are people using FTP to upload
their script files to a shared host. The simplicity of the system makes it
easy for anyone to get started, hence the popularity.

There is also the bit about taking an existing UI (written in HTML) and being
able to insert programming hooks into it at will. The "minimal change" is very
small, the biggest step is changing the file extension from html to php.

------
antidaily
Good points but why not just comment within the thread?

~~~
bootload
_"... Good points but why not just comment within the thread? ..."_

Read ... [http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-
ope...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-open-door-
heal-or-die.html)

and specifically ...

 _"... When you build a system where you get points for the number of people
who agree with you, you are building a popularity contest for ideas. However,
your popularity contest for ideas will not be dominated by the people with the
best ideas, but the people with the most time to spend on your web site. Votes
appear to be free, like contribution is with Wikipedia, but in reality you
have to register to vote, and you have to be there frequently for your votes
to make much difference. So the votes aren't really free - they cost time. If
you do the math, it's actually quite obvious that if your popularity contest
for ideas inherently, by its structure, favors people who waste their own
time, then your contest will produce winners which are actually losers. The
most popular ideas will not be the best ideas, since the people who have the
best ideas, and the ability to recognize them, also have better things to do
and better places to be. ..."_

------
wvenable
It's a rather strange argument: Use the least popular language around to make
the most money. He's probably right. When I was younger (and I'm not that old)
I did a stint working in COBOL. And honestly, you couldn't pay me enough to do
that day in and day out!! But those that can stand it and know how to do it
are paid well and have reasonable job security.

~~~
knieveltech
Dude's post was standard-issue comical purist bitching if you ask me. Sure,
there's some value to be had by specialization, but taken to the logical
conclusion dude's premise reduces to "step 1, learn fortran. step 3, make one
million dollars.". Simply put, any language-specific grousing is either an
expression of monkey-see-monkey-do false zealotry, or just plain wanking. The
real question with any tool is, does it get the job done and from where I'm
sitting PHP appears to be getting the job done for a lot of people.

------
ssharp
So if PHP is a commodity and price wins, why would any company NOT choose PHP
as it's development environment? Cost wins in business. If PHP essentially
does the same thing that Ruby and Python does, there would be no reason to pay
a Ruby developer more.

There are various levels of skill within any programming language. It may take
someone with no programming experience a day to write a small database app in
PHP. It doesn't mean that I'd be willing to hire that person to code something
worthwhile for my company.

You can't simply real world situations into easily digested bites and act like
you are saying something profound. In reality, you're just omitting the layers
that make the real world situations complicated.

------
brlewis
There's a repeatable principle in the PHP story: Know who the real customer
is. In this case the real customer was shared hosting providers. In other
cases you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

------
cosmo7
This isn't about PHP winning, it's about Ruby on Rails _not_ winning, ie:
losing.

Obviously C# beats the pants of both of these hippy languages so the argument
is moot anyway.

------
rnernento
I'm not sure it's fair to say that the ability to write php is less valuable
then the ability to code other languages just because php is more popular.
This may be true for contract work but if the majority of companies are using
php it's probably in your best interest to know it. While it may be beneficial
to know other languages, it could be detrimental not to know php, which could
be considered a win for the language.

------
tdavis
I didn't bother reading this, based on the title which assumes I think PHP won
something, I guess. I used PHP for a few years, then found something better. I
never thought PHP won anything, other than a momentary lapse of my reason.

Next time, be less of a generalizing dick.

~~~
jjames
This comment won't be very popular and let me explain why in case you are
interested in retaining credibility for potentially well thought out things
you say in the future.

First, admitting that you didn't read the article in a comment on that article
is showing your hand before the call and you know for a fact it's a losing
hand. In the future, just fold and keep your chips.

Second, it's important to retain your clout in a community like this and
actually reading the site regularly is key. If you had been reading this week
you would have seen the 2 posts riding the top two related to PHP "winning".
In both cases you would have gotten grumpy and written precisely this comment
on those articles. If you had, you might have actually had a lot of upvotes.
This articles is a response to those posts saying something resembling your
point with some meditation on the topic.

Third, and this is the key point, try harder before commenting to ascertain
whether or not you agree with the article before admitting to having not read
it and then personally attacking someone you don't know. If you absolutely
have to attack someone, it is universally bad form to attack someone whom you
agree with.

~~~
tdavis
Thank you for that very thorough critique. I have internally summarized it as
"do not post comments after a night of heavy drinking." I trust this is in
keeping with the spirit and overall theme of your follow-up.

------
ashr
Spot on! Except for the hint of hacker news disdain.

------
TweedHeads
PHP won because web designers now can be programmers too.

I don't care about algorithms, binary trees or what fuck. I can code a web
page in a day and that pays the bills.

It could have been an echo, a print or a put, but it had to be simple for us,
not scary as system.console.writeln()

Most of you will never understand, you all come from a C or Lisp background
and can make a computer cry for sure. We don't care, we just want to spit HTML
in shiny ways and 'echo' is all we need.

~~~
jjames
Indeed, there is design and then there is Design. There is architecture and
there is Architecture. There is programming and there is Programming.

Anyone can write but not everyone can (or rightly wants to) Write.

This is nothing new. Pulp outsells literature and I'm sure people cry rivers
over it. Does that mean pulp "wins"? By one measure, obviously. But they still
won't teach it in school and noone will remember it when it's gone.

~~~
patio11
_[T]hey still won't teach it in school and noone will remember it when it's
gone._

Indeed, imagine a world in which English classes started with bawdy, violence
filled plays written to entertain a mostly drunken and illiterate rabble. Then
for the second unit, you could maybe read a serializations designed to sell
magazines, whose author was paid by the word. Perhaps by the end of the year,
you'd be ready for pop-lit writers who had to retcon their stories due to
marketing considerations.

Ugh, what a pitiful and impoverished English curriculum it would be if
transient crowd-pleasing drek like Shakespeare, Dickens, and Doyle were
studied as literature.

~~~
ahoyhere
There's a difference between pulp and Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's understanding (and manipulation) of the human condition is self-
aware, with a wink and a nod.

Pulp, on the other hand, is typified by "Pregnant by the Millionaire." (A real
book.) The author may have a certain level of self-loathing (doubt it), but
these books are straight for all it's worth.

~~~
saulhoward
There is no difference between 'pulp' and Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote for
the crowds of his day. The difference you allude to is between 'good' and
'bad' writing, according to your personal preference.

'Pulp' refers to popularity, not literary merit.

~~~
DougBTX
'Pulp' refers to 'wood pulp', as in cheap and without much substance. Though
you're right, judging something as objectively good is a generally hard thing
to do, especially when what you are really trying to do is guess what people
in 100 years will think of as good.

