Jeremy's Blog

John Lim made a post about a problem he had with certain output that he believed should be the same. He requires registration for comments, and I couldn’t be bothered, so here’s my response.

Check out the integer literals example in the PHP Manual for the answer to why he’s having issues. His sample code is:

echo 09," => (09) <br>";
echo 9," => (9) <br>";

The reason that doesn’t work as expected is because 09 when used as an integer is interpreted as an octal number. So, the result that he’s seeing is:

0 => (09)
9 => (9)

That’s just how integer literals work and it’s documented behavior. It’s not a bug. Well, it’s a bug in his code, but it’s not a bug in PHP.

This has to be the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while.

CIO has an article up entitled “You used PHP to do WHAT?” in which the author describes some of PHP’s supposed “shortcomings” … From reading the article, it becomes quite apparent quickly that the author really doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

Here was my response to his absurd Facebook reference:

 

OK, to finally rid myself of any more Facebook references, you folks should all read this link:
http://developers.facebook.com/resources.php

and this link:
http://developers.facebook.com/documentation.php

So what? Facebook uses a standard API that can be INTERFACED by languages besides PHP? How does that prove your point in the slightest?

You, sir, are a tool. This entire article is nothing but link-baiting FUD. You claim to be a PHP developer, but you apparently don’t know even the basics of scaling and security in PHP applications.

You and the editors of CIO should be ashamed of yourselves for letting such poor content through.

And what a hypocrite. Saying the things you do about PHP when this site is running off of a PHP-backend from a pre-packaged CMS product (Drupal).

FUD really annoys me. What annoys me more is that this publication is targeted more towards management-type people. So, if you’re a PHP Developer, the person reading this article could very well be your boss. How are you supposed to cope with your boss having these types of “facts” on hand when it comes time to decide what technology to move forward with? Especially, when most managerial types I’ve met don’t know much more than what the author of this article apparently does.

I have to admit that I’m a little concerned about this. Apparently, Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo and threw $44.6 billion at them in an offer.

My question is what does this mean for PHP if Yahoo accepts the offer? Not enough major players use PHP and Yahoo was one of our best aces to throw when people started talking down about the language. What’s Microsoft going to do with Yahoo if they buy them out?

Maybe someone with a little more knowledge on the issue can shed some light somewhere …