4 ms·

PHP and MySQL, yuck!

throwaway420 14y ago
Is the software any less useful because it's not created in a trendy language? One of the advantages that PHP has is that virtually any cheap web-host in the world can run it. It's not a bad choice to sell a self-hosted product in PHP because of this advantage. I'm not a huge fan of PHP for many types of projects, but I don't see how it benefits anybody to reflexively hate on something just because of a technology choice.
- wpietri 14y ago
  PHP was such a security nightmare for so long that I am very reluctant to enable it on any box I actually care about. (It could well be better. It's been a long time since I was sysadmining many boxes.) So for a project I have to do the hosting on, language choice still matters to me.
  - hadem 14y ago
    And you're a huge fan of Ruby on Rails right...?
    - kristopolous 14y ago
      And he's also part of the Long Now Foundation and did volunteer coding for MediaWiki (Don't know the guy, just googled around). No need to be mean to a nice guy. :-\
    - gmac 14y ago
      Whatever else he's running, adding PHP to it increases the risk.
      - maratd 14y ago
        That's true of any piece of software you add.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      I've worked in RoR, but calling me a huge fan would be a stretch. I have a number of substantial issues with it. Maybe it's just what I've happened to see, but my impression is th I certainly had to do a lot more upgradingat the PHP platform security issues were more frequent and more substantial than RoR has been. I certainly had to do a lot more upgrading. Maybe it's different these days. But the major difference I've seen up close is that RoR makes it much easier for average programmers to be productive while still coding securely. If I'm going to be running J. Random Hacker's code on a personal server, I'm going to worry less with Rails. All that said, I'd also be reluctant to install a Rails app. Just less reluctant than PHP.
      - wpietri 14y ago
        Oops. Sorry for the word salad in paragraph 2. Caught once again by the middle mouse button.
krapp 14y ago
If it works, it works.
pwenzel 14y ago
It works reliably on simple shared host. The developer rolls out automatic updates as well. PHP is a perfectly fine solution for this purpose.
pinchyfingers 14y ago
We're here to make $$$, not to be trendy. There's plenty of good reasons to use PHP, especially if commercial viability is a primary goal.
dan15 14y ago
PHP and MySQL aren't that bad (and support for them is pretty much guaranteed on every web host). However, the fact that it supports PHP 4.2 and MySQL 3.23 makes me wonder how old the code base is! Makes me think it's using so many obsolete PHP methods, the deprecated MySQL extension, and is all procedural code (which almost always seems to be spaghetti code with PHP).
- Mahn 14y ago
  So what if it works, it's not like you are going to have to scale it to millions of users. Just make sure it's firewalled and you're good to go.

Is the software any less useful because it's not created in a trendy language? One of the advantages that PHP has is that virtually any cheap web-host in the world can run it. It's not a bad choice to sell a self-hosted product in PHP because of this advantage. I'm not a huge fan of PHP for many types of projects, but I don't see how it benefits anybody to reflexively hate on something just because of a technology choice.

wpietri 14y ago
PHP was such a security nightmare for so long that I am very reluctant to enable it on any box I actually care about. (It could well be better. It's been a long time since I was sysadmining many boxes.) So for a project I have to do the hosting on, language choice still matters to me.
- hadem 14y ago
  And you're a huge fan of Ruby on Rails right...?
  - kristopolous 14y ago
    And he's also part of the Long Now Foundation and did volunteer coding for MediaWiki (Don't know the guy, just googled around). No need to be mean to a nice guy. :-\
  - gmac 14y ago
    Whatever else he's running, adding PHP to it increases the risk.
    - maratd 14y ago
      That's true of any piece of software you add.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    I've worked in RoR, but calling me a huge fan would be a stretch. I have a number of substantial issues with it. Maybe it's just what I've happened to see, but my impression is th I certainly had to do a lot more upgradingat the PHP platform security issues were more frequent and more substantial than RoR has been. I certainly had to do a lot more upgrading. Maybe it's different these days. But the major difference I've seen up close is that RoR makes it much easier for average programmers to be productive while still coding securely. If I'm going to be running J. Random Hacker's code on a personal server, I'm going to worry less with Rails. All that said, I'd also be reluctant to install a Rails app. Just less reluctant than PHP.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      Oops. Sorry for the word salad in paragraph 2. Caught once again by the middle mouse button.

krapp 14y ago

If it works, it works.

pwenzel 14y ago

It works reliably on simple shared host. The developer rolls out automatic updates as well. PHP is a perfectly fine solution for this purpose.

pinchyfingers 14y ago

We're here to make $$$, not to be trendy. There's plenty of good reasons to use PHP, especially if commercial viability is a primary goal.

dan15 14y ago

PHP and MySQL aren't that bad (and support for them is pretty much guaranteed on every web host). However, the fact that it supports PHP 4.2 and MySQL 3.23 makes me wonder how old the code base is! Makes me think it's using so many obsolete PHP methods, the deprecated MySQL extension, and is all procedural code (which almost always seems to be spaghetti code with PHP).

Mahn 14y ago
So what if it works, it's not like you are going to have to scale it to millions of users. Just make sure it's firewalled and you're good to go.