Is php a good language to learn?

VisionStudios

Here's a little background... I am currently learning HTML CSS and JavaScript. I hear to learn Ruby on Rails is better than PHP, but it seems like it's easier to get started making things with PHP and I understand what I am doing. I hate that Rails has so much going on.
Please any advice

Points:
Is Php a code that will be worth having for the next 20 years?
If Php is so bad why does VanillaForums use it?

Any tips or ideas on what I should do my main goal is to make plugins and other items that could work with Vanilla forums.

R_J

@VisionStudios said:
Any tips or ideas on what I should do my main goal is to make plugins and other items that could work with Vanilla forums.

Learn PHP. Vanilla is written in PHP and all plugins are written in PHP. You will need at least an understanding of HTML/CSS/JS, too.

Search the web for beginner tutorials on PHP. I'd bet there are a trillion.

In parallel, look for a plugin that does something similar to what you would like to develop (start with simple projects). Try to understand what this plugin does and start modifying it.

You do not need to be a hardboiled coder to get your first plugin up and running. Just ry, ask for PHP help in PH forums and for Vanilla help here.

@VisionStudios said:
Here's a little background... I am currently learning HTML CSS and JavaScript. I hear to learn Ruby on Rails is better than PHP

Programming languages are merely tools. No one would say: The chainsaw is the queen of all tools! Buy that and you can solve every problem with it!
The same goes for programming languages.
By the way: Ruby is the language and Ruby on Rails is a framework using Ruby.

@VisionStudios said:
Points:
Is Php a code that will be worth having for the next 20 years?

No one can make any prediction for the next 20 years. The question is silly.

x00

Personally I thing Ruby is bit overrated. It look nice in principle but is way too idealistic to fault. It has way too much syntactic sugar.

I would learn python an PHP. PHP is widely used and python is a great and powerful language.

Linc

@VisionStudios said:
I hear to learn Ruby on Rails is better than PHP

Everyone thinks the language they've chosen is the better one to learn.

From a strictly academic point of view, as in "I want to learn to program in the general sense" and have no other plans, I'd tell them to learn Python.

PHP has a much easier learning curve, but it can also teach you some bad habits early on because of how much it lets you get away with. At its highest levels, it's every bit as "good" as its peers.

I started learning PHP in 2003. No regrets. I've never had a serious desire to learn a different language. All the biggest open source web projects in the world are based on PHP, and that isn't changing any time soon. It's this huge open source community and mature technology stack that convinced our founders that PHP was the best platform choice.

x00

Facebook was built with php.

They reach a brick wall, and the didn't wan to retrain their developers so the developed a supped up engine for php.

Twitter was built on Ruby.

They reached a bottle neck, they used a combination of Scalia, Java, Ruby, and JavaScript rendering. They also support C++. Very powerful but hella complicated.

VisionStudios

Okay, thanks looks like I will learn PHP do you guys have any guidelines that you think would be a good start.

vrijvlinder

Read the manual

http://php.net/manual/en/index.php

VisionStudios

@vrijvlinder said:
Read the manual

http://php.net/manual/en/index.php

Thanks .

R_J

http://www.phptherightway.com/

VisionStudios

@R_J said:
http://www.phptherightway.com/

Thanks.

rbrahmson

A word of encouragement - a year ago I knew nothing about php, plugins, Vanilla and now I have several working plugins behind me (with great help from the community). So go ahead, download plugins, read them, modify at will, ask "how to" questions and with patience you will find yourself contributing plugins. Good luck!

VisionStudios

@rbrahmson said:
A word of encouragement - a year ago I knew nothing about php, plugins, Vanilla and now I have several working plugins behind me (with great help from the community). So go ahead, download plugins, read them, modify at will, ask "how to" questions and with patience you will find yourself contributing plugins. Good luck!

Thanks.

jackmaessen

little bit offtopic: i wish there comes a time when computer can understand normal language and translate it into syntax by himself.

Your command: "check the age of John and Sue and tell me which one is older"
The computer knows he has to do this:

<?php
/* age of John and Sue */
$John = '20';
$Sue = '30';
if ($John > $Sue) {
    echo "John is older then Sue";
} elseif ($John == $Sue) {
    echo "John has the same age as Sue";
} else {
    echo "Sue is older then John";
}
?>

Everybody can program without knowing complex syntaxes of programming languages

x00

it is relatively simple to parse a statement like

"check the age of John and Sue and tell me which one is older"

Natural language processing already exists, goggle make good use of it as do many phone apps.

However natural language is somewhat overrated as programming language, becuase natural language has built in ambiguity and make thing overly complex to interpret.

There is has been a tendency in recent years to develop programming language like "real life", but this "real life" is somewhat of a pink elephant.

It hasn't produced better software or reduced bugs.

hgtonight

@jackmaessen said:
little bit offtopic: i wish there comes a time when computer can understand normal language and translate it into syntax by himself.

Your command: "check the age of John and Sue and tell me which one is older"
The computer knows he has to do this:

<?php
/* age of John and Sue */
$John = '20';
$Sue = '30';
if ($John > $Sue) {
    echo "John is older then Sue";
} elseif ($John == $Sue) {
    echo "John has the same age as Sue";
} else {
    echo "Sue is older then John";
}
?>

Everybody can program without knowing complex syntaxes of programming languages

Most SQL are human readable syntax.

There are also logical languages like prolog.

Lots of different languages out there.

x00

There is a difference between human readable and full natural language based.

I mean obviously assembly is less readable that higher order.

However the pursuit towards natural languague meh, if anything we need to bridge the gap between machine and humans, by coding in way that make harder for us to make mistakes, which machine will interpret wrong. Natural language doesn't deliver that.