Comment Re:c++ is 'write-only' code (Score 2, Insightful) 752
What C++ has always lacked, and PHP, Java and others do not, is a bundle of standard libraries that let you do things like process XML, talk to databases, and make templating EASY.
I agree with you, but there's one small thing I don't get.
Faced with this piece of information, someone thought the logical thing to do was to, er, write an entirely new language?
What? Your logic is circular. PHP did not have standard libraries for XML (etc.) until after it existed, obviously.
PHP was invented as a lightweight server-side preprocessor as an alternative to CGI, not as a general-purpose systems-engineering low-level compiled language.
(I don't disagree with your gist that PHP is not well suited to many of the jobs it's used for today, but I wanted to clarify the history.)
-b