Re: Can a Perl Programmer Pick up PHP quickly?

nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Used to be you'd call a sub like this &subroutine() which is how I
> learned it.

Then you didn't learn enough. You still set register globals to on?

> The whole 'more than one way to do it' is nice, but it does make perl
> harder to learn.

Nonsense. PHP is not easier compared to Perl. If you do serious things
in PHP you have to learn a lot. The thing is, most people use PHP for
small toy thingies.

> For a Perl coder, PHP is simply a matter of sitting down and writing.
> (and probably hating it because of the way it hampers ones sense of
> creativity)

It's not. I am an experienced Perl coder, and it's not a simple matter
to do PHP. To process a form and put a few things in a database, yes. To
write a serious big application no.

> PHP has something-to-the-effect-of classes. No real name spaces
> though.

One of the major flaws, yes.

> Seems to me, PHP5 is looking up toward 'java'. Has interfaces and all
> that jazz. (still no inner classes though)

It's not even close to Java of 1995.

> While perl has had 'die' for years, PHP only recently picked up
> exceptions.

Yup, PHP has been designed by people with a severe lack of computer
science skills.

> Naturally, a language with fewer features is going to be easier to
> learn. (and probably parse much faster too)

If there was an easy to learn programming language it would have been in
use for over 50 years by now. So why isn't there such a language?
Remember Java? Easier and "smarter" then C++. No more memory leaks
(sure), write once, run everywhere (sure). And have a peek at Java now.

Languages that start out as easier then X, better, faster to learn, etc.
often miss out a lot of features which are added in, sometimes extremely
clumsy. PHP already started out clumsy, so imagine.

>>> PHP functions are, on the other hand, well documented,
>>
>>*sniggers*, sure. Maybe you misunderstand the word well.
>
> PHP is pretty well documented.

It isn't.

> I don't think it's as documented as
> perl though.

Exactly. You can't call documentation guessed after the source not good
documentation. Add the so called User Notes (a large part has little or
no programming skills) and you are in for a wild ride.

> Problem with perl is it's *too well* documented.

No it isn't. It's very well, and *formal* documented. I don't have any
doubt if I look up something in the Perl documentation. I do have doubts
when I read the PHP "documentation". And I have guess the rest based on
experimentation. Which means that when I upgrade to a new version my
program might break (been there, done that).

>>What is bizarre about tie? Which part do you not understand? It's
>>nothing more then being able to override some methods on a type of
>>variable.
>
> tie is rather hackish,

It isn't. It's just like being able to override methods on a basic type
in Perl, nothing more, nothing less.

> you can admit it, I won't say anything.
> (hackish and quite useful at times.)
>
> BTW, speaking of 'tie' and undocumented.. PHP also has stuff like
> 'tie' but they don't call it as such. It's the kind of thing that is
> very hard to learn about compared to perl because it isn't as well
> documented as perl is. (they call it 'spl' or some-such, the idea
> being to implement a standard interface) Trying to learn about it is
> rather tough because you have to know what to look for. I suspect perl
> is easier to learn in that regard at least.

Again, there are no easy languages. PHP seems to have it origins in a
programmer who had little to no Perl skills, thought he could make an
easier "Perl" and ended up with a bigger mess. Sadly there are still
people adding to this mess instead of weeding out all the garbage that
has been crept into PHP.

--
John Small Perl scripts: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
Perl programmer available: http://castleamber.com/
Happy Customers: http://castleamber.com/testimonials.html

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