Re: Why is PHP so popular? What can we learn from the PHP camp?

In article <032b01c3131b$65d04aa0$6401a8c0@MELONBALLER>,
Chris Pine <[e-mail]> wrote:
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Rich" <[e-mail]>
>
>
>Visit: http://www.php.net/manual/en/ for starters. Ruby is no where near
>that level of 'extra' functionality. Sure, it could be done.. but it has yet
>to be done.
>----------------------------
>
>
>Which hints to the other reason PHP is so popular:  Marketing and cost.  Why
>is Taco Bell more popular than El Palenque (on SE 17th; check it out, Phil)?

I'll check it out... SE 17th and what's the cross street?

>Marketing and cost.  (Since both Ruby and PHP are free, of course, "cost" in
>that sense refers to difficulty of installation and learning curve.)  PHP
>was sold as a language for html-people... a programming language for
>non-programmers.  In fact, your old html pages already worked just fine as
>"valid programs"!
>
>Taco Bell doesn't have to be good.  It just has to be OK, cheap, and easy.
>

and the fact that it's readily available doeesn't hurt either.

>I think the "Taco Bell" argument is why it became popular, and the "big
>manual" argument is why people stick with it.  (Well, that and the fact that
>a lot of people stick with their first languages.)
>
>It's surprising to me that "real" programmers would use PHP, though, even if
>they have other scripting languages to use.
>
>However, it really doesn't make any difference to me how popular Taco Bell
>is; It doesn't make El Palenque any worse.  Perhaps the difference is that I
>don't think anyone would disagree with me that El Palenque's food tastes
>better... especially people who had never gone there.  (I presume none of
>you have ever been there, but you believe me that it tastes better, don't
>you?)  

I haven't been to El Palenque, but I have been to Taco Bell in the past 
(hat to admit it) so I can readily agree that El Palenque is most likely 
_much_ better.

>My Mexican food snobbery carries a certain weight, I suppose, and no
>one who eats at Taco Bell is going to be snobby about *their* food.  I think
>everyone realizes that what Taco Bell does well is something other than
>making the best Mexican food in the city, and few (if any) would claim it to
>be the highest-quality Mexican food around.

I agree that often the better (language|restaurant) is often much better 
than the more popular (language|restaurant).  Maybe I could throw in 
another Mexican restaurant: Baja Fresh.  Baja Fresh is a chain, but they 
make really very decent Mexican food (in fact I find their fish tacos 
among the best).  Now to really stretch the analogy: Baja Fresh probably 
employs a lot more people than El Palenque.  That doesn't make one better 
or worse than the other, but do you see where I'm going?

Now to leave the Mexican Restaurant analogy...  Languages tend to build a 
critical mass.  Perl did this in the past and PHP seems to have done this 
as well.  To some lesser extent, Python has done this. What happens is 
that these languages attracted enough attention 
and developers so that any lack they had/have tends to be filled in by 
people developing additional modules, documentation, etc.  More developers 
means more manpower (people power) available to improve things.

We can sit around and say that we don't care about popularity because Ruby 
is much better than the alternatives (and in our opinion it is) but then 
if we don't attract more people to the language, it's going to stay small 
and perhaps stagnate (which isn't an issue in the restaurant business).
 
>
>I guess the problem is that most programmers see programming languages as
>more like religions than Mexican food.  If I told you I was writing a new
>programming language, wouldn't you have at least a bit of scepticism,
>perhaps even contempt?  "Why another?"  "Do you really think it will be
>popular?"  And so on.  But what if I told you I was opening a new Mexican
>restaurant?  "When does it open?  Are you going to have free chips and
>salsa?"


Maybe, but PHP started out just like Ruby did, no?  It was a free/open 
source language.  As far as marketing goes, I don't think they had any 
corporate funding for marketing, did they? (at least not until O'Reilly 
started doing PHP books)  The main point of my question 
is not really to bash PHP, but to figure out what they did right in the 
marketing/promotion department and try to emulate that so we can get more 
Ruby developers.  (So far several people have mentioned that PHP has 
better documentation - so we're back to the old documentation problem.)

More Ruby developers => More Ruby programs/packages/modules => more Ruby 
visibility => More Ruby usage => Ruby jobs => More Ruby devlopers

It seems that it's a feedback loop that tends to be self reinforcing.

>
>Anyway, happy Cinco de Mayo!  ;)

Yes, happy Cinco de Mayo!  Cinco de Mayo isn't really Mexican Independence 
day as is commonly thought (that's September 12th) but it marks a victory 
of the Mexican forces against the French in which the Mexican forces were 
heavily outnumbered by the better trained and equiped French army.  So 
sometimes the underdog does win, that should give us hope ;-)

BTW: it's amazing that what amounts to a fairly minor holiday in Mexico 
is a five day celebration here in Portland, OR - any excuse for a party, I 
guess.  The 4th of July isn't even celebrated for five days.

Phil