Re: Why use PHP? What are the disadvantages?

["Dean, Robert" <rdean@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My biggest beef with programming is when the maintainers of a 
package lack any sort of coding discipline.  Then it doesn't matter
what the language is: a nicely structured easy-to-understand
program will become an unmaintainable pile of mush after just
a few iterations.  I've seen a lot of open source software that
falls into this trap, and it's especially true for programming 
languages that have a quicker ramp-up time.
________________________________________
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta [joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 5:24 PM
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Why use PHP? What are the disadvantages?

are off.  And when you combine that with ADGA (Agile Development Gone
Awry), you end up with code where it's nearly impossible to tell what is
in a variable at any given time.

Careful, careful attention paid to variable naming and strict coding
standards can ameliorate some or even most of the problems, but very few
shops have such standards, and RPG shops in particular tend to have
nothing in place for their PHP development.  And the time it bites you
is when you find yourself with an unexpected error in a not-particularly
well commented program where you're not even sure what's supposed to be
in the variable that's causing the error.  Add to that the fact that
most scripting languages have very little in the way of solid impact
analysis and that's why they fare much better in prototyping and proof
of concept than in production development.

Dynamic typing makes it easy to throw together stuff quickly, but it
doesn't really get aroudn the maxim that you can have something done
fast or well, but not both.  That's why static typing is 60% of
programming today and gaining share.