20 possible reasons why PHP function names and parameters are weird

Monday, May 28. 2007

20 possible reasons why PHP function names and parameters are weird

Here are 20 possible reasons why PHP functions lack consistent names and parameters. Learning the definition for every PHP function is truly an amazing feat and I doubt this has been attempted or accomplished by anyone. At least, by any sane human. And references are named references because they are designed to be referenced, right?

The List:

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... because it's fun
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 = $$$

Related Resources:

CODING_STANDARDS history (1998-1999) and (1999-present) and (view current)
Rasmus article "Do You PHP?", see section titled "The Ugly Duckling of Programming Languages"

Related Quiz Questions:

Write the prototype for: in_array, isset, empty, strpos, strstr, subtr, implode
Find the aliases: die, exit, echo, print, mysql, strchr, strstr, implode
Locate the functions: die, echo, print, include, isset, unset, array, rtfm, str_parse, implode
Define these PHP terms: Deprecated, Minor release, Major release, PECL, TSRM, Open Source, Rules

Posted by philip in php at 16:21 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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Amusing list. I laughed for a few of them, and no doubt there's a bit of truth in each item on that list.

Comment (1)

#1 Ambush Commander (Homepage) on 2007-05-28 17:40 (Reply)

sounds like a light description for PERL :)

Comment (1)

#2 Emil Tamas on 2007-05-28 18:09 (Reply)

Good. Very good. Most people will never understand the first one in your list. It is the most common reason PHP is the way that it is.

Comment (1)

#3 Brian Moon (Homepage) on 2007-05-28 18:35 (Reply)

Hah! "Pull Strings" Is that your code-speak for payoffs from the manual cartel?

Is it? O Capo di tutti capi?

((Geez, I hope that's glue.....))

Comment (1)

#4 Sara Golemon (Homepage) on 2007-05-28 23:39 (Reply)

Sorry for my bad english.

I remember a thread in a coder-board, some years ago. The guy said "Now that PHP is well used by the John Does, we have to work for make the language more hard to fully understand, for they need us for that".

Comment (1)

#5 D.Durand on 2007-05-29 09:08 (Reply)

maybe in PHP6... lol

Comment (1)

#6 chels75 (Homepage) on 2007-05-31 05:11 (Reply)

lol... but I am more confused now :( I was finding way to go with PHP or ASP.NET

Comment (1)

#7 Mac (Homepage) on 2008-02-12 09:32 (Reply)

I was hoping to find some tips on how best to name a function using the least number of characters and avoid conflicting with future reserved words.

The reason I want to do this is so users of my software can enter snippets of PHP into their web pages that call one of my functions that inserts some code into their page.

The shorter and easier it is to type the better.

burp() seems to be suitable.

Andy

Comment (1)

#8 Andy (Homepage) on 2008-03-14 06:27 (Reply)

well at least the names are easy to goddamn type without ridicujlous prefixes or stupid::colons

Comment (1)

#9 nerpi (Homepage) on 2009-02-20 11:57 (Reply)

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