

PHP, the web’s most popular programming language, is coming to mobile - neya
http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/02/php-andi-gutmans-future-mobile/

======
debacle
PHP's killer app is the LAMP stack and $5 hosting. Unless you can replicate
that familiarity on a phone, PHP wont find traction. There are far better
programming languages out there with more backing, and I don't think not
having PHP has been a major hurdle for mobile development

PHP is the core web language because PHP devs (for the most part) are cheap,
replaceable parts. You need to be smarter than that for mobile development,
and anyone smart enough for mobile dev won't use PHP if they don't have to.

~~~
Alan01252
Sorry, but that last line sentence has really touched a nerve, maybe I'm being
trolled, but here comes my 2 cents anyway.

I personally use PHP all the time, I love it. I can code large, maintainable
and secure applications with far more speed than any other language I've ever
used ( and trust me I've used a lot ). It's my language of choice when I'm
building web applications.

Not only is it available everywhere! but it's been established for long enough
that there are a wide range of top quality frameworks and libraries written
for it. Oh and these have been written by developers who I'm _certain_ are
much smarter than us both.

And why the hell is mobile development any harder than web development. It's
just _code_ , not arcane magic. Trust me I've seen, and will continue to see,
just as much badly written/badly performing code for mobile applications as I
do for web based ones. Just because you're using Objective C / Java as the
tool of choice doesn't make you any better or smarter a developer.

If there is a mobile offering coming up based around PHP, I'm looking forward
to trying it. If it allows me the same benefits as the language does on the
web then I'll be using it, regardless of how many people think that makes me
"not smart".

~~~
jamesbritt
_If it allows me the same benefits as the language does on the web then I'll
be using it, regardless of how many people think that makes me "not smart"._

That was part of the OP's point. "PHP's killer app is the LAMP stack and $5
hosting."

That option makes PHP useful in many cases where arguably better languages
would not be smart choice.

But, without that same value in the mobile space, what's the case for using
PHP over, say, Objective C or JavaScript or Ruby or Lua, other than not
knowing Objective C or JavaScript or Ruby or Lua?

~~~
Joeri
Let's go over those:

\- Objective C: not a competitor as it doesn't do multi-platform, which I
assume will be PHP's main angle.

\- Javascript: weird OO model (compared to PHP's traditional OO), much smaller
set of API's, typically tied to a web UI (PHP would probably wrap around
native UI API's). Along with C# I consider this the strongest contender, but I
can see why people would prefer PHP.

\- Ruby, lua: does anyone actually use those on mobile? I'm sure they have
their qualities, but those are really niche languages (on mobile). To me these
are not serious competitors.

~~~
cpeterso
Lua is very popular with iOS game developers.

~~~
wreckimnaked
Lua is very popular with most game developers.

~~~
jamesbritt
There is a Lua mobile game framework as well (which is why I popped Lua into
that ad hoc list).

------
error54
<rant>

The link intrigued me that PHP was coming to mobile but the only sentence in
the entire thing that spoke to that was "But, he hinted to me, PHP and Zend
will be providing client-side app-enabling tools." The rest of the article is
just filler about the history of PHP.

I mean really, this is the definition click bate: a bunch of filler and one
tiny smidgen of information.

</rant>

Personally, while I'm not a huge fan of PHP it is one of the most useful
languages I've learned so I think that mobile PHP is pretty exciting.

------
ljoshua
The accessibility is a huge selling point, but also (and often overlooked) is
the non-prescriptivist nature of PHP. For so many jobs (and yes, even in
enterprise) you just need to get the project done and out there. It doesn't
have to conform to perfect OO standards and doesn't have to follow certain
architectural specifications. PHP is great for that.

When you need to take it to the next level and establish a really good and
efficient standard, there are extremely well-done frameworks to assist you.
But when you just need to get something done, sometimes PHP's "do it anyway
you can" nature is it's biggest feature.

It will be interesting to see what mobile play Gutmans et. al. have. If they
can bring that same "let's just get it done" mentality it may have a chance.
Interested to see how it goes down.

~~~
debacle
It's hard to write "do it any way you can" code when you're dealing with a GUI
object model. PHP works because all you're doing is writing to stdout.

~~~
meritt
Your junior-level knowledge of web development is coming out in your overly
negative and anti-PHP ranting today. The end result of any backend web service
is quite simply "writing to stdout". That's how HTTP works. How exactly does
the transport mechanism have any bearing on the platform?

Let's not forget web development today consists of a substantial amount of
both back-end and front-code, the latter of which operates in a fashion much
like GUI object model.

~~~
debacle
> Your junior-level knowledge of web development

Lets not make personal attacks here, okay?

~~~
paul-woolcock
You mean like this one?

> PHP is the core web language because PHP devs (for the most part) are cheap,
> replaceable parts.

------
Zak
In other news, the world's largest manufacturer of hammers has announced a new
model accepting hex-bit screwdriver tips in the end of its handle.

------
bungle
What PHP needs is the ability to run websockets natively without extra setup.
Right in a mod_php or PHP-FPM. None of the current platforms have this right.
You always have to run extra web servers in place of Apache or Nginx. Yes,
this is also a thing that Apache, and Nginx have to figure out. Running
node.js or Go web servers is too immature.

~~~
j_baker
If you're afraid of immature technologies, why use websockets to begin with?

~~~
bungle
Good question. I see this more or less like chicken-egg situation. Right now
it seems that client side is quite well maturing. Client side is the easier
part of websockets. PHP's whole model is 'shared nothing', that's why it fits
so poorly with websockets. 'Real-time' two-way communication with the server
and the clients is getting more and more common in web apps, and even web
sites. I'm not sure how the server side of the websockets are going to be
solved. If PHP gets it right, it will probably have great future ahead. These
days we need to revert to dual solution, main system behind Apache or Nginx,
and websockets with for example custom node.js servers. It is far from
optimal.

------
j_baker
I'm skeptical that PHP is the "web's most popular programming language", and
feel it serves no other purpose in the title than to be inflammatory.

From the article: "Wikipedia says 75 percent of websites use PHP."

From wikipedia: "PHP is used as the server-side programming language on 75% of
all Web sites"

However, that's not what its source says.

From wikipedia's source[1]: "PHP is used by 78.1% of all the websites whose
server-side programming language we know." And I'd be willing to bet that PHP
(and the runner-up, ASP.net) are easy to identify considering the pages end
with particular extension (which isn't the case with other technologies).

The article gives no other proof save an unverified quote from Zend that
states that PHP runs 35% of web requests. It even gives evidence to support
the conclusion that PHP's popularity is declining.

[1]
[http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_languag...](http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language/all)

------
gary4gar
This article is perfect example of PR Speak passed on as news.

in the article head, it says "PHP, the web’s most popular programming
language, is coming to mobile" but then nowhere in articles author mentions
about this except in the end where it says "Coming soon"!

WTH?

~~~
protomyth
It's a press release (well really a comment made to the press) used as a nice
link-bait filler news article. Drew Curtis of Fark.com fame wrote a great book
with this and more examples of news industry behavior that is even more true
in the link-bait world.

<http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-News-Fark-Media/dp/1592403662/>

------
billpg
Malaria, the world's most popular disease.

------
rexreed
For an article whose title is about PHP moving to mobile, it's quite
disappointing that they literally spent only 3 sentences on it... at the end.
And didn't even say anything worth reporting. Link bait.

------
Joeboy
I think this might be the angriest, most uncivil HN discussion I've seen so
far.

~~~
maratd
Is this your first PHP thread? Pretty much all of them turn into a "ha! ha!
you use php!" and those of us who use it to build things justifying our
decisions.

------
bagosm
Coming from the .NET world, the single biggest problem I have seen with PHP
developers is their lack of life cycle concept understanding. This will
probably prove to be the most challenging part when PHP developers start to
engage with singletons, IoC etc. For example any .NET developer would
laugh/cry with this: [http://www.slideshare.net/go_oh/singletons-in-php-why-
they-a...](http://www.slideshare.net/go_oh/singletons-in-php-why-they-are-bad-
and-how-you-can-eliminate-them-from-your-applications)

~~~
bitcrusher
Interestingly, that's why a lot of my colleagues and I dropped .Net (and Java)
like a bad habit... Singleton, IOC, Dependency injection, GoF hell.

NOT that PHP is a good alternative; Only different perspectives on the same
issues.

------
jstalin
Heads are exploding all over Hacker News.

------
lukifer
PHP's core strength is that it is a DSL for serving websites. While it can be
used for other things, I see zero benefit in bringing it to mobile.

~~~
dasil003
Also, the philosophy of PHP is a batteries-included approach of bundling
everything so you rarely need an external library. Both of these things seem
fundamentally at odds with mobile development, but who knows, maybe they can
chisel something out.

------
serialpreneur
Why is this on front page? It is a total fluff piece with no real value.

"But, he hinted to me, PHP and Zend will be providing client-side app-enabling
tools."

There are already bunch of client-side app-enabling tools thousands of devs
are using with PHP already. Holy shit .. but .. Zend is coming up with some
_awesome batshit secret new sauce for client-side_ that will work with PHP!
Mind = Blown!

</rant>

------
SG-
PHP article yet the 'nice' image at the top seems to be OSX booting in verbose
mode.

