@creayt said:

We can stop talking about it, but it's my entire point w/ the script versus tag based syntax. For generating dynamic HTML and integrating w/ HTML, which is, you know, only the most important and ubiquitous markup language in the world and responsible for the greatest innovation of our time, the tag-based language is much, much, much, much, much better.

I agree with you here mostly, and for years I constantly pushed for moving things to the web. I got my wish, but in the 90s people though I was crazy. I disagree with that a similarly syntaxed language is good, because mark up and actual programming are two different things.

Probably just because you haven't worked with it. It doesn't encourage one thing or another. You can easily, fluidly write full classes, inheritance and all, w/ the tag option. And it works extremely well, and can be written about as quickly as script version thanks to the beauty of code insight and completion.

I can see how this could be the case.

Dead simple ( pseudo

 <class extends="parentClass">
    <properties />
 
    <method name="doSomething">
       <argument name="a" type="b" default="c" />
       <return x />
    </method>
 </class>

You can format code by doing five ~ before and after the text. Anyway, this isn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but again feels too XML-like for my taste, and in fact aside from return x, this whole thing is XML parse-able; though I imagine less strict XML engines would allow an argument without value.

@creayt said:

@tonyshowoff said:

Yes, PHP has a lot of poorly named internal functions and in many cases parameter order that doesn't match logically with similar functions. This issue isn't ignored, and there are plans to fix it and primarily replace things with internal classes, but it's not an easy road. I certainly find it really irritating, but IDEs help, and I know what you mean about having to check the docs a lot or google things, but I rarely do anymore thanks to PhpStorm.

Sounds awesome and like PHP is about to get a lot better. I bet you're excited.

Assuming that's not sarcasm, yes it is awesome, and PHP is getting better. It was really, really terrible for a long time, and I did a lot of PHP work, but not as a primary language, since about 1998/9. Only since really 5.5 has it taken off, and their release schedule is much tighter than it used to be, and the thing I'm most excited about with the coming PHP 7 is actual scalar typing. Some people consider PHP to be moving toward Java, but I don't consider that a bad thing, because I hated a lot about Java.

PHP's got some goofy syntax problems like how namespaces are dealt with, but Apple's new language Swift has even weirder stuff, like using \ in strings not to escape things, but to import variables... wtf?

@creayt said:

@tonyshowoff said:

Unfortunately I don't have the tools to run any sort of tests, but I based on it on the fact that CF is interpreted on top of Java, and it's part of the same reason that Ruby is slower than PHP. Also I wasn't aware of any op or byte code caching. I tried to find some done online, but they were all either way too old or seemed biased either toward PHP or CF..

ColdFusion COMPILES into Java, and is extreeeeeeeeemely fast. You learn something ever day

Does it? Yes, I do

@creayt said:

Better for what? Some things, not others, do you get what I mean?

Better flying machines. When it comes to flying there's speed, height, manoeuvrability, fuel economy, and what you can carry, and planes are better at all those things except manoeuvrability.

You can do separation of concerns either way.

My point was it seems like it encourages you not to though.

The tag-based version fully supports OO programming.

It's hard to visualise what that'd look like.

I fundamentally disagree with you that airplanes are better than helicopters. I think helicopters are better and full of more individual utility overall, but airplanes are better at some things, and extremely easy to pilot. I've never driven a helicopter, so I can't speak to that, but I imagine it's much more difficult.

Well, I disagree with you here, and helicopters are much harder to pilot, indeed. I don't even think we should keep talking about this, seems completely off point.

@creayt said:

I'm mostly referring to the absolutely schizophrenicish naming of things, from what I remember from my PHP days. Underscores here, weird choices there, etc. One of the things that I adored about the move from PHP to CF is that I had to consult the docs so, so much less, because of the language design, it's extremely guessable a lot of the time, so as I was learning it I was literally able to just guess function names and they'd be right, instead of having to Google every 8 seconds.

Yes, PHP has a lot of poorly named internal functions and in many cases parameter order that doesn't match logically with similar functions. This issue isn't ignored, and there are plans to fix it and primarily replace things with internal classes, but it's not an easy road. I certainly find it really irritating, but IDEs help, and I know what you mean about having to check the docs a lot or google things, but I rarely do anymore thanks to PhpStorm.

@scottalanmiller said:

I don't know but didn't FogCreek make something to convert their VBScript into PHP?

Bwahahahaha

Sorry, had to be mentioned.

Yes, it's called Wasabi, it converts to other languages so they can be more OS independent, it's all a terrible, terrible idea. It's based on VBScript though, with some additions to it.

@creayt said:

@tonyshowoff said:

PHP's also a lot faster (primarily with opcaching)

Wait, what? Where did you hear that? I would bet money that I can take almost any PHP code you have, rewrite it in ColdFusion, and run it on identical hardware and have it just mercilessly dominate PHP's peformance. ColdFusion has a giant, beautiful array of caching options and uses Ehcache under the covers. I'd be interested to read what you read that made it sound like PHP can even hold a candle to Java performacewise. Didn't Facebook even write something to take their PHP, expressly because it's slow, and convert it to C++ or something?

Unfortunately I don't have the tools to run any sort of tests, but I based on it on the fact that CF is interpreted on top of Java, and it's part of the same reason that Ruby is slower than PHP. Also I wasn't aware of any op or byte code caching. I tried to find some done online, but they were all either way too old or seemed biased either toward PHP or CF.

Facebook wrote HipHop which converted PHP to C++ to gain performance, but even now PHP's new opcaching still isn't as good as what's created with the HHVM, but it's far, far better than it was.

@creayt said:

That's my point. It's not. It's a lot closer to HTML than XML, hence its unparalleledly good integration with HTML.

See, but I consider that a weakness. Separation of concerns is important, especially as projects get larger, and become harder to maintain. I can see how for many projects it wouldn't be a bad thing though, especially smaller ones.

@creayt said:

No, they're not. Airplanes are fantastic for transporting mass quantities of people across the globe, but they're terrible for maneuvering into tight spots and shuttling someone that's dying to a hospital, for example. Different problems, I promise.

Of course, and that's what I said, if you want to measure them differently, but as far as flying machines go, if we measure based on overall qualities planes are better. If we break it down into "which is better for this specific task" then things change, and there are situations where not even helicopters can get in, due to powerlines, close buildings, etc.

@creayt said:

It's not vastly better. That's like saying that an airplane is "vastly better" than a helicopter. They're two different beasts with different purposes, they each do certain things extremely well.

But they are, airplanes can go further, faster, and higher than helicopters, and carry more weight. If you want to measure them differently, of course you can find reasons why each are their own beasts, but from a syntax perspective cfScript is better, and it (I assume) allows separation of concerns, where as the other is just mixed right in.

I hate XML too. Good thing ColdFusion has literally nothing at all to do with XML except that it's able to parse, generate, and work with it extremely easily, the same way it can with JSON, and a zillion other things.

That was a reference to the fact that regular CF is similar to XML syntax.

I guarantee you that if you and I sat down and created an identical product, and you saw that ColdFusion let me do it in about a third of the time it took you, and in a way that's actually more fun and flexible, you might love it too haha.

Possibly, I am open minded.

I started out with PHP, which got me really excited about web development, and I still write PHP from time to time, helped my GF construct some objects from a MySQL query and serialize them to JSON in PHP the other day ( she was reimagining an example from a book she was reading ).

I was really confused at this first, GF and CF look too similar, lol.

When we were done we wrote the same code in ColdFusion, and it was something like 75% fewer lines of code. PHP has some strengths, but I've never met a PHP developer who could offer much more than "a lot of companies use it and there are a lot of things already written in PHP" as a competitive advantage.

PHP is widely supported, but has a lot of power from the perspective of developing large projects, separating concerns, and interacting with a lot of outside things -- are there a lot of enterprise projects built with CF? I can't think of any, doesn't mean they don't exist of course, I assume some do, but there's a reason it's not first choice. PHP's also a lot faster (primarily with opcaching), plus also I can find more PHP developers, and the rest is mostly just preference based, and things I feel are better for me you likely do not for you.

As far as the syntax, I mean Jesus. If you want to talk terrible syntax, PHP wins that contest by a mile.

I like C-style syntax, though, I find it easier to read, and the syntax isn't too dissimilar from cfScript from the looks of it, and in fact cfScript looks almost identical to JavaScript. Is it a reimplementation, just designed based on it, or is it compliant like ActionScript?

@scottalanmiller Me too, client side Java sucks. The first version of AOL AIM was coded in Java... Swing is so terrible.

@scottalanmiller said:

And CF runs on top of Java now too

So does Ruby

@creayt Oh, no I wasn't, cfScript is vastly better. Admittedly my experience with CF is about 8 or so years out of date, but due to licensing, availability, and other issues I never consider it really. Full disclosure, I've always hated XML as well, and we use JSON or BSON for all of our transport/storage stuff in house where possible over XML. You may love ColdFusion, but I certainly do not, and I think that's fine.

@creayt said:

Ummmm, what? Better organization of code? What does that sentence mean to you?

Easier, rather, it puts you in a position to more easily organise things, because things are easier to follow and find. Proper organisation of larger projects is highly important, especially when you consider things like separation of concerns and so forth. Text editors like Sublime or Notepad++ don't really help with that at all.

@creayt I don't disagree that it's faster to write, but from a syntax perspective the fact it doesn't stand out from HTML I don't consider an advantage. I also don't consider it an advantage that basically almost forces one into a position of not separating concerns. You can write more CF, but will it be better, faster, and more platform independent than my PHP? (Possibly faster than Ruby, depending on various things) Certainly not, and I'm also locked into Adobe's licensing schema as well, and I don't like that. In all though the syntax issue is a matter of preference, obviously, but I think my other concerns are founded.

@creayt said:

Ah, of course it does. Forgot it was JS-centric. I'll have to check it out soon. What are some of the advantages it has over Sublime?

Profiling, testing, better organisation of code, great version control, I can click and follow things, great refactoring support, way better suggestions based on the language and code you've written. It's endless, really, Sublime is basically a fancy highlighter, but better than Notepad++.

@creayt Sorry, I was watching GoodFellas and not paying attention to what I was typing. I edited my post, I meant to say it was hard to read, it's definitely not hard to do.

I definitely don't consider it cutting edge at all, and the syntax to be just god awful. I'd say that node.js is cutting edge and it also does support WebSocket too (naturally). Plus WebSocket libraries are available with most major languages too, just because they're automatically included with CF (assuming) doesn't make it superior.

@creayt Oh, I did consider maybe that was CF, but then I thought "well, maybe not" because it's hard to read in the pic. CF though, come on man, modernise!

Edit: WebStorm does node.js well, that's what we use it for.

@scottalanmiller Yeah in house we use RubyMine, PhpStorm, and WebStorm. All awesome and increased productivity a lot.

@creayt Get a real IDE! Basically anything by JetBrains is great, what language is that though? Is that some sort of templating within PHP? If so PhpStorm is the way to go