What is the difference between a PHP developer and any other developer? If they tried to stick this in the middle, I could swallow it but opening sentence is just ridiculous.
Hello, I helped edit the blog post and actually proposed this sentence. I love this reaction:
> What is the difference between a PHP developer and any other developer?
It's exactly the type of response I was hoping for. In early drafts we got a common "big whup" response from some readers. Most posts on PHP these days only do well when they bash the language, very few focus on __why__ they use PHP: which is to create things. Yes, all developers create things, and PHP developers do as well. This sentence serves to validate PHP and their developers. So to answer your question:
> What is the difference between a PHP developer and any other developer?
I still don't buy it. I find that type of sugarcoating generally unnecessary and distracting in negative sense, especially when you start the announcement with it.
Either way - thanks for taking the time to explain.
No worries. I start a lot of writing with a "hook" first sentence and try to end with a memorable sentence. I then diagram the work into bullet points and try to make sure all key takeaways are obvious, note I didn't actually work on the _final_ draft of this doc. I was pleasantly surprised to find they left my first sentence in there.
Some hooks are better than others. I'm an engineer before a writer. It sucks that we have to market tech things, but the sad truth is most announcements that have no "hype" get no hype. I do a bunch of open source work, and some projects I promote and they do well, others I don't promote and they don't do as well.
Generally at Heroku I try to only put one or two flashy sentences in. The rest should be direct substance delivery, though that's not always the case. Thanks for taking the time to click the link, read, and comment!
My cynical reaction: Heroku is a pillar of the frequently extremely PHP hostile Ruby community trying to extend an olive branch now that they want to do business with the community. Obviously Heroku isn't responsible for all the PHP hate in the Ruby world (or any of it for all I know) but I understand why they feel the need to open with a compliment & appeal to friendship.
Why are you getting your jimmies rustled for no reason? Stop getting offended over nothing. They didn't say "PHP developers are makers at heart. No one else is."
I'm not getting offended; actually I'm mainly a PHP dev.
The sentence just sounds as if you paid $5 someone to write you an intro to a technical matter because you didn't know what to to use.
The sentence is general and without point. Because it is coming from a technical company and is aimed towards technical people, yes, I find it ridiculous.
Ha! Actually that would go on my nerves even more. I don't like that type of sugarcoating in general. There is a big difference between passionate language and fake passionate language. IMHO this is the latter case.
It is a positive sentiment that even PHP haters can agree to. Seems like a very carefully crafted sentiment to endear themselves to PHP devs without alienating tribalistic Python/Ruby/etc devs.
My bias: 80% hate, 18% apathy, and 2% curiosity into what facebook is doing with the language.
Why do you feel the need to "hate" a programming language? Hate racism or hunger or war; but a programming language? I find such vitriol unnecessarily divisive and I don't think it in anyway benefits our industry.
I feel no need to hate a language, but I recognize that I have a feeling of hatred towards it. I also recognize that such feelings bias my words and feel that it is helpful to others when known biases are disclosed.
In this context, I think disclosing my emotions towards the language tells others that while I dislike PHP the way Heroku phrased their "makers at heart" was a positive sentiment that I could agree with. It seemed relevant.
Why do I hate it at 80%?
Because it burned me in the past. Because it makes doing things right hard. Because other people make the same mistakes over and over and yet I still have to use it on occasion.
It's an emotion built up after years of negative experiences. My emotional experience with PHP went from Interested to Excited to Cautious to Wary to Hateful.
For me, PHP was the friend that promised the moon and when he did show up he came with week-old dried out cheese instead of the moon that he promised.
Cumulative bad experiences, especially when larger factors (legacy decisions, inertia, switching costs, etc) force you to continue having those bad experiences, leads to negative emotions.
Call it extreme dislike if you want, but for me it is a lesser form of hate.
Note that this is all personal description. Perhaps it was the timing (04-08) perhaps it was my level of experience, perhaps it was bad luck. I realize that some people have unanimously or mostly positive experiences with PHP and I'm not trying to diminish their experiences.
I have never understood this hatred towards a language. Some languages and the ecosystems around it may allow you to burn yourself easily more than the others and in some cases where you were in your career when you first started hacking in that language might have burnt you. But in both scenarios I don't see the source for hatred. It adds to who you are as a developer I think. I frequently hear this from people who like to identify themselves with one of these camps. Why not enjoy all the languages and use them for what they are good at or more accurately use them for what you are good at using them for. Can't we all just get along...
Ruby is flawless,Java is rigid,C well nothing against C,C++ is a mess yes.
PHP is a mix of C (apis like mysql_fetch_assoc ), C++ (:: ->) and java (class and interface ) with javascript weak typing.
It is a mess. I'm a PHP dev, the problem is when i have to maintain other's people mess too. Ruby and Java messes are far more easier to maintain than any PHP one.
There is also the PHP culture and community ,which quite toxic.
For all these reasons,while PHP is my bread winner I have no love for it.
Setting aside my own biases on the subject and giving the OP the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the OP feels that PHP is some kind of local maximum of some characteristic that makes languages good for the lives of programmers, but s/he feels there are much greater nearby local maxima. Perhaps the OP doesn't hate PHP as much as s/he hates that some programmers haven't found greater productivity/peace/enlightenment/whatever because they're locally maximizing and have settled into the local maximum of PHP, which s/he feels is much below nearby local maxima. In this view, the lives of programmers would be better if the PHP local maximum did not exist. I'm intentionally not commenting on the validity of this view.
Playing devil's advocate, perhaps it's even noble to hate a non-sentient thing which one believes impedes the progress of sentient things.
> PHP developers are makers at heart.
What is the difference between a PHP developer and any other developer? If they tried to stick this in the middle, I could swallow it but opening sentence is just ridiculous.