On Jul 25, 2008, at 11:20 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 01:41:50PM -0400, Jonathan Bond-Caron wrote:
>
>> I'd say "the Web is just and always was a hack"
>
> I have to object to this pretty strongly.
He has a point, though. If you were starting out to build a user
interface framework for building applications to be used by general
users, I really doubt you'd end up with the current situation of
HTTP, HTML, CSS, Javascript. But that's no matter, really, because
here we are.
Same for PHP. If you wanted to build a great, elegant, scripting
language for writing web front ends, you almost certainly would not
end up with PHP. But, here we are. Coming from a C++ and Java
background, I find PHP to be just nasty in a lot of ways, but it gets
the job done.
Most developers don't make deep informed decisions about PHP vs other
languages. They use it because everyone else is, there is a huge
ecosystem of support around it, it's easy to get something flopping
around on the table quickly, and they know *for sure* that they can
host it anywhere. Which, really, are not terrible reasons to pick a
development environment.
Dragging the subject back to PostgreSQL, it's the same thing with
MySQL vs PG. Very few people do detailed technical analyses of
exactly which DB to use (and, if they do, they use PG :) ). They use
MySQL because everyone else does, it gets the job done (or at least
appears to), and, most importantly, every $9.95/month hosting plan in
the world includes MySQL because Wordpress requires it.