That other comment was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek :)

I wrote the "fractal of bad design" article, though, so your biting commentary isn't misdirected. But I stress that I rag on PHP in particular because I feel it does a unique disservice to my field. There are plenty of languages I don't like or otherwise wish to avoid that I haven't felt the need to write a scathing deconstruction of.

Deployment is hard. I deliberately said mod_php seems easy because it still has caveats, and most of the reasons it works have significant downsides in the language. But this is something I think about regularly and am trying to find a solution to.

I mention photography exactly because that snootiness is a double-edged sword: perhaps there are now many more bad photos, but there are also many more photographers, and with that ultimately comes more good photos as well. The road to improvement across the board is always more accessible education + finding a way to marry the convenience of the new easy tools with the power and finesse of the old ones.

In that vein, you may notice that phone camera hardware has been getting increasingly respectable lately, and that people tend to (rightly) gripe when a new phone comes out with a really crappy camera. That's how I feel about PHP: I don't begrudge anyone for using it, but the rest of the field has improved considerably and it's a shame that cruftier equipment is still popular.

I don't know how you can be a good craftsperson without being able to judge the tools at your disposal, for good or for bad. I know why I like Python, and I know what Python lacks that I keep an eye out for in other languages. If you don't like Python, that's fascinating and I would love to know what about your perspective is so radically different, how it could be fixed, how it could be addressed in a similar language, or even what language does it better entirely. The intricate personal attachment to our tools is ridiculous, and discouraging criticism of them will only make us all worse at avoiding the bad ones and designing better ones.

"That other comment was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek :)" I somehow failed to comprehend your humor. But, from above comment, it seems I was not incorrect in detecting your stance about PHP.

In your article "fractal of bad design", you have listed problems in PHP. You can get a lot of similar articles, from Google, that list problems in other languages.

PHP (or any other language for that matter) doesn't do disservice to anyone or any community. None is forcing you to use PHP. If PHP doesn't work for you, you are free to find another language that works for you.

Every language has caveats. But good news is - there are a lot people trying to improve the languages.

You are trying to find a solution like mod_php. But PHP community has that solution already. So, PHP has something right, right? It is always good when you try to do something to make the language of your choice better than talking bad about a language you dislike. Good that you are trying something to make something better.

Phone cameras have improved. So has PHP. PHP 5 is better than PHP 4. But if you expect PHP to have all features of Python, then it will become Python. PHP doesn't want to become Python or Java or Ruby. And that is the most important part. PHP is popular because the way it is. It is not the most well designed language in the world. It never intends to have all features taught in programming languages class. Unlike Java, it never tries to be everywhere. PHP just makes it easy to create dynamic web pages. It will not force you to use OOP. It will not force you to use Camel case. It will not force you create XML config files. It will not force you to set type of variables. In short it gives you a lot of freedom and power. But, with freedom and power, comes responsibility. As a developer it is your responsibility to use OOP when needed. It is your responsibility to use right coding style.

Just imagine a world where you can't choose anything. The computer store forces you to buy a Macbook, even though you can't afford one, because the store believes that is the right tool for you. You got to university and the university forces you to take courses they think right for you. You go for buying holiday package and the travel company forces you to choose your destination because they know, based on their experience, what is right for you. Such world without options will be terrible.

So, let the craftsperson choose what works best for his or her work. Don't force anyone to use anything just because you think that is right for them.

If you love Python, you can tell people why you love that language and how using that labguage makes programming fun. After listening to you, people can try Python. If they like the language, they will keep using the language. But going to a PHP thread and then writing limitations about the language or writing bad things about the community is nothing but negative criticism which is bad for everyone.

> PHP doesn't want to become Python or Java or Ruby.

PHP doesn't know what it wants to become. This is part of the problem: for any given question, PHP has multiple answers. That makes code harder to write (which option should I choose here?) and hard to read (this doesn't look anything like my code!) and harder to reason about (how does this feature interact with this other feature?).

> It never intends to have all features taught in programming languages class.

You say this here (and in other comments) as though it were an insult. Is there something wrong with learning? If programming languages are hard to learn then we should make them more accessible, not just throw all the things that make them valuable out the window.

> It will not force you to...

Python does not force any of these things. Nor do Ruby or Perl. It sounds like you like PHP because it's not Java. Surprise: I don't like Java either. Surprise again: that's part of why I don't like PHP. Interfaces, "abstract", private/protected/public, and much of the rest of the OO layer are all clearly inspired by Java.

> Just imagine a world where you can't choose anything.

Who's arguing for this? I imagine a world where the choices are all equally good and you don't get screwed by picking the overpriced underpowered laptop, the underwater basket-weaving class, or the sleazy travel agent.

There's no need to invent a derisive (or at least an apparently derisive) nickname for a language simply because you dislike it or its community.

First, I don't dislike Python (or Go).

Second, I don't dislike Python (or Go) community.

Third, a group of the Python community (and people from that group who migrated from Python to Go) that bashes other languages and communities at every opportunity deserve such nickname.

It is the venomous Snakes that bite others for no reason.