Tuesday, 29 May 2007

20 Reasons Why PHP Function Names and Parameters Are Weird

Philip Olson gives you twenty reasons why PHP functions lack consistent names and parameters. He thinks learning the definition for every PHP function is a feat and he doubts if anyone has attempted or accomplished it.

He gives the following list of reasons:

• PHP glues APIs and humans together, and sometimes this gets messy PHP documenters pull strings to force a dedicated audience
• PHP is gearing up for a massive quiz on every function signature to rival all pi (π) competitions
• PHP likes BC
• PHP thrives on making your life difficult
• PHP is working on a time machine so really none of this matters
• PHP gladly and openly steals ideas and usage from other languages PHP says all your namespace are belong to us
• PHP functions have been developed under many circumstances, sometimes drunk
• PHP is a recursive acronym
• PHP anarchy says rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules!
• PHP function naming algorithm still remains a secret and cannot be cracked
• PHP chose to give people something fun to complain/blog/laugh about
• PHP function aliases are for the weak
• PHP functions created in the 90's (and some later) directly used prototypes from low-level APIs
• PHP isn't designed to win a beauty contest
• PHP has other problems to solve
• PHP needed a way to explain having an elephant for a logo
• PHP encourages text editors to be intelligent => code insight
• PHP.net + Ads = $$