Virtual hosts in Apache? mod_rewrite? Your understanding of modern PHP development really is circa 2000. Try replacing those with nginx and PHP-FPM for a start.
> And what I still don't see is anything saying they are taking their performance problems seriously.
Hmmm, you have heard about PHP-FPM right? And the built-in APC cache? And HipHop?
Besides, in my experience performance problems will arise with other parts of your architecture a lot sooner that your application code (e.g. database if you're not clever about load balancing and caching), regardless of what language you are using. Network calls and disc I/O are a lot more expensive than CPU cycles in your app code.
> Still nothing saying they are fixing their documentation.
Define fixing. It works fine for me as-is.
> Nothing addressing their hodgepodge of legacy code and mixed methods of implementing features.
Again, define addressing. Deprecating? They're doing that. What else do you suggest, breaking existing popular applications by removing legacy code that you find offensive? Let me know how that works out (see Perl 6, Python 3...).
> Its like their upset that people have moved on,
Define people. Seriously.
> but instead of providing a better core for people to build products on they keep adding chrome to the fringes of the language hoping to get more people sucked into developing for it only to realize that once they do anything of significant size in PHP they will need to do a full rewrite into a language that can actually scale or turn to a PHP to C++ lexer to actually get a product that doesn't also server as a Data center toaster oven.
Wow, that needs a comma.
I hate these ranty posts attacking open source projects. Have you any idea how many hours of dev time went into PHP 5.5, free of charge? If they work that hard to build something this significant for the community free of charge, the least they deserve is your respect. In the meantime, feel free to go use Scala/Ruby/Node/whatever excites you.
I do respect the work they have done to the language, and I have also spent many hours contributing back to PHP and the various projects in the PHP community, however that doesn't change the fact that the _community_ collectively has a hard time dealing with the hard issues that need to be solved. Proof of that is the response you see right here on this forum. Mention how PHP's internals are lacking and get told how I must be a n00b and should just turn on APC. Until PHP starts to take its core defects seriously I don't think it will ever make significant progress as a platform.
> Until PHP starts to take its core defects seriously I don't think it will ever make significant progress as a platform.
I'm sorry, but given that PHP the platform (forgetting about gripes with the language syntax for a moment) has been used on major projects for years, what more significant progress do you want?
Your talking about it as if it needs to prove itself as a viable technology, when clearly this is not the case.
^^^^^^
This is the attitude I am talking about. Clearly since it's popular then there is nothing wrong with it. Thats total BS. There are tons of things wrong with it. Yes people do really cool things with the language and the run time, but just because someone using it doesn't make it _good_.
> just because someone using it doesn't make it _good_
Actually, it does. When you give people a large array of choices and they consistently choose the same thing, over and over again, that makes that thing good. Now, it may not be good for exclusively engineering reasons, but it is still nevertheless good.
Characters like Mark Thomas and Michael Moore build their protest messages around PR stunts, it's their modus operandi and I believe it's a valid usage of media.
I'm not saying that is what's happening, just saying it makes it easier.