i love php

i think i am in love with php. which makes no sense because i hate it. it's a weird relationship.

here we go..

my introduction

i have always loved making stupid websites and other junk to publish on the internet. its fun. it all started when i got a book at the scholastic book fair that showed the basics of html and css. that is where my adventure into terrible programming practices, horrible javascript games, and more bs started. i remember making a basic index.html file and putting a heading and paragraph into it. i also remember trying to upload that html file to a hosting website, getting confused, and then giving up.

this was all while i was in third/fourth grade, so cut me some slack.

i then moved to weebly, and made even more websites that sucked.

after multiple years of static html websites, i moved on to making quick games with wick editor. it was similar to adobe flash, but ran in the web browser and used javascript instead of actionscript. i made lots of silly games in this time, which were available on my old website.

my discovery

i had played with wordpress and media wiki, so i was aware of php, but never really interacted with it.

but one day, i needed more than html.

i wanted to run a textboard. for those unfamiliar, it was similar to an imageboard like 4chan, but without the images. i found microtxt, which was a textboard written in php and sqlite. it was perfect. i could upload it via ftp to my free 000webhost account and it would just work! i played with it for hours and customized it so much it didnt resemble the original code.

years later, i would play with php a little more with each project until we got to where we are today.

why i love it

it is so easy to work with: someone with little programming knowledge like myself can cobble something together in less than an hour. it lets you interact with the file system, databases, and take in form input. almost all websites, at their core, just receive and send webpages.

its not javascript: no explanation needed.

portability and hosting: i can move around a php project with ease. want to work on it locally? you can use xampp or mamp. want to publish it on the web? web hosting for php has never been cheaper. the site you are looking at, right now, costs less than $2 a month.

why i hate it

syntax: php syntax is pretty brutal. don't even get me started with the dollar sign variables.

function names: why do some functions use camelcase, and other use underscores? this is just the tip of the iceberg for how messy this language can be.

it is so easy to work it (part 2): sometimes, i wish it was harder to use. i wish it had more safeguards for bad software design. i have written some really, really, bad websites in php. its not really the language at fault, moreso its popularity and reach. there is a reason ive only ever gotten 2 forks on a project before, my code sucks.

conclusion

php has enabled me to create websites and applications with ease, even if they suck, and even if i suck.

anyways have a good day.