
Our modern web theme goes live - Seldaek
http://php.net/
======
programminggeek
For better or worse, the one thing that I can say that is very positive about
php, is php.net has basically great documentation and it's usually easy enough
to find what you need about particular methods. If php didn't have the
documentation that they do, it would not be as successful as it is.

~~~
robertfw
We switched from PHP to Python a few years back and the one thing I
consistently miss is the documentation. I feel that PHP has far superior
documentation in terms of clearly showing arguments, returns, examples etc.

~~~
dspillett
It is how PHP survived (at least in the 4.x.x and early 5.x.x days when I last
used it) the massively inconsistent "standard" library: the documentation
reduced the effect of that problem considerably and made discovery of features
relatively easy.

A "good enough" system with excellent documentation is going to win out
against a better system without the doc documentation to make library feature
discovery and use easy.

It'll be interesting to see how node.js develops in this regard. Currently the
core documentation is pretty good there, but as the size of the project grows
it'll take effort to maintain a certain standard and coverage.

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vital101
In general I like the new design. I do have one thing that I'm not wild about:

[http://www.php.net/manual/en/](http://www.php.net/manual/en/)

The page that you are dropped into for that is not very friendly. I much
prefer the layout for a sub-page once you've clicked a link.

[http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.php](http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.php)

~~~
alttag
I agree.

In addition, I hope the next "fix" will be to cull the comments. While there
are occasionally some worthwhile edge cases documented in the comments, there
is also a great deal of spectacularly bad design advice, which doesn't help
PHP's reputation among language elitists as being for script kiddies and
beginners.

~~~
ericras
The main reason I like the comments on php docs is it's helpful for me to see
a basic usage example. A lot of docs (your typical 'man' page for instance)
just have a dictionary-like wall of text without a usage sample.

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dasil003
It reminds me of Drupal circa 2006, not that that's necessarily a bad thing
(it's been a tremendously usable site since forever, so if it ain't broke…),
but "modern" is a bit of a stretch.

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gketuma
Have always liked the user contributed notes on php.net. It really increases
the value of the documentation.

~~~
Achshar
It isn't often that a doc doesn't solve my api level problem but when it does,
user notes always save the day. There is always someone who faced same corner
case as mine. One of the many advantages of using the world's most popular
server side language.

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ineedtosleep
Note that users of extensions like Ghostery will have the search functionality
(e.g.
[http://us2.php.net/results.php?q=curl&l=en&p=all](http://us2.php.net/results.php?q=curl&l=en&p=all))
"broken." You'll have to allow the Google AJAX Search API permissions for it
to work.

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philliphaydon
How do I view the new modern design?

~~~
kenrikm
I see some text on a very plain page with a top bar logo that feels oddly
squashed in relation to the other content. Feels like 2003 to me.

~~~
philliphaydon
So I assume this is the new site? :|

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itry
Search does not work without javascript.

Fixed header takes away screen real estate.

Grey text is hard to read.

Sends every pageview to Google.

I do not like it.

~~~
hnriot
* Sends every pageview to Google.

you mean it has analytics, like every other page on the internet.

* Fixed header takes away screen real estate.

it's modern, you know, where people have screens larger than VGA. This isn't
1998 anymore.

* Search does not work without javascript.

Very hard to be a nice guy with this sort of comment. Javascript is part of
the web fabric, if you switch it off much of the web breaks. Switch off CSS
and you'll notice the page doesn't look very good either. javascript is to
behaviour what css is to appearance. I'm really tired of people who switch off
js and then complain. Get with the program! Saying something as utterly stupid
as this negates any other potentially valid point you _might_ have had.

* I do not like it.

[http://weknowmemes.com/2011/05/and-not-a-single-fuck-was-
giv...](http://weknowmemes.com/2011/05/and-not-a-single-fuck-was-given-that-
day/)

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jneal
Just looking at the home page, the text being sooo close to the left-hand
margin really bothers me. I use a portrait monitor and browse full screen and
it just feels odd having to read the text butted up against my monitor border.

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hardwaresofton
Definitely worlds better than the old design, I think it's awesome, very
clean. Makes me want to do some projects in PHP again.

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beebs93
I like how you can finally add the search field as search engine in Google
Chrome.

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pdknsk
I had expected some pretty home page indeed remarks in the comments, none yet.

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spacecadet
It's simple- That's awesome.

To all the snark related to "modern", oh you mean the cluster-f*ck of animated
javascript and sensory overload that has become the modern web? please.. you
can K.I.S.S it.

~~~
computer
This new PHP.net site is also dependent on javascript, as the search engine
does not work without javascript.

~~~
spacecadet
wow you really missed that one..

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dictum
I'm the alignment nazi and here's your guru meditation:

    
    
      .navbar .brand {
        padding: .5em 0 .5em 0;
      }
      
      .navbar .brand img {
        margin-left: -0.2em;
      }

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pbreit
And this is why blogs make lousy home pages.

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frodopwns
Contrast on links is not quite good enough.

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DrinkWater
That is news-worthy?

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dedsm
modern, as PHP

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JimmaDaRustla
Oh man, my childhood memories...gone... _sniff_

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drzaiusapelord
Well, they moved from 1996 to 2006. So, progress?

Still, big improvement. Snarky comments aside, it seems easier on my eyes. Not
a big fan of underlined hyperlinks though.

~~~
asdasf
>Not a big fan of underlined hyperlinks though

Don't worry, soon it will become illegal to care about usability and then
everything can exist for purely aesthetic purposes.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Arbitrary top-down usability guidelines from the early web aren't the
unquestionable gospel you think they are.

~~~
asdasf
That is an awful lot of fallacious reasoning packed into one sentence.

What evidence do you have that this guideline is arbitrary? It will need to be
pretty compelling evidence given the overwhelming evidence showing higher
click through rates with underlined links.

Where do you get "top-down" from? Was that simply chosen from a list of
sufficiently vague insults that can be tacked onto anything without having to
justify them? Who is this top and how are they forcing this down?

What evidence do you have to support the notion that usability guidelines
become incorrect due to age? How many years does it take for a guideline to go
from right to wrong? Can they be preserved in some way to increase their shelf
life?

How do you know I think they are unquestionable gospel? Nothing I said
indicated anything of the sort, you have never met me, and know nothing about
me, so where could you possibly have gotten that idea? Do not feel compelled
to create motives or positions for me in your imagination, if you would like
to know how I feel or think about something you can simply ask me.

