Which highlights his laughable ignorance. He clearly doesn't understand dynamic languages. If you do the same comparisons in other dynamic languages, or others with the relevant type casts, you'll get the exact same results.

Then again, I'm not trying to defend a long-debunked meme. I appreciate the effort you put in to your "rebuttal", but it's laughably incompetent. A bit like the "fractal" article itself.

They don't exist. I've asked the "what's wrong with it" question countless times. I've never received an actual answer. I think your six points are about spot on, that's pretty much all the article has to offer.

I disagree with the first point, for obvious reasons. As well as point 5, which is not a language issue. Point 6 would need some clarification as it's completely unsupported. Point 2 doesn't make sense to me. How many languages throw an exception on a parse error? What if the error is in the handler itself? Further, he seems to hate the fact that PHP doesn't have MORE fatal errors. I'm convinced that he'd complain, as he did in other cases, if a parse error *wasn't* fatal. It's a very odd complaint.

I'd give the author points 3, and 4. Of course, even if I grant him all six, it hardly makes PHP a "fractal" of bad design.

You don't think the suits are salivating over the possibilitiy of the people they can get rid of once they send as much work as possible to "the cloud"? There is a repeating cycle in the business world. They start out with in-house. Then they want to cut costs, so they outsource, then outsourceing doesn't work very well because of either costing more than it was supposed to, or it doesn't work like it was supposed to, so they start hiring in house again(and remember, you are just another customer to your cloud supplier, so you don't get any special treatment - same as outsourcing) Then they run with in house for a while, then they want to cut costs.....

I've seen the cycle many times.

But there is!

In many places, it's illegal to engage in the practice of unlicensed engineering.

We could stand a good crack-down. I'm sick of seeing all the one-skill-wonders running around calling themselves "engineers" to feed their fragile egos. It does a serious disservices to REAL engineers, like the parent.

Except it imposes a burden on the developer, which, in sane languages, can be handled with a single click on the the pretty-print button.

This argument drives me crazy. It completely ignores *every other factor* that affects code legibility. I've even seen Python zealots argue that all Python code readable because indentation is enforced. What a joke! I've seen plenty of illegible Python code.

And yes, when the indentation level changes by more than one level, it's significantly more difficult to read than other languages. Even if you disagree, you've got to admit that it's far easier to tell when a block begins and ends when you have two indicators instead of one.

If that's not to your liking, consider that, in Python, it's possible to have two programs that appear visually identical but are, in fact, different. You want to talk about readability while advocating a language in which you can easily create errors that you actually can't see? It's the height of absurdity.

Python's problems are far broader and deeper than PHP's. At least with PHP, there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with the language. Python, on the other hand, is beyond salvation.

Just one example: The whitespace issue isn't simply a matter of personal preference. It's why Python will NEVER have anonymous functions without laughably absurd limitations.

The article tries to wow us with the hugeness of the database, like this is a reason for the issues.

Yet the numbers quoted are not that big. Any modern PC isn't going to get too upset handling 75 million things. A real data center is going to sit there wondering what to do with the remaining 500TB of storage.

I don't doubt that there is some horrible flaw in the way the system was conceived that rendered it fragile, but whatever it is, it's nothing to do with the enormity of the problem, because it isn't very enormous.

This is Slashdot so ... probably not.

Don't worry, the cloud's basic purpose is to get rid of those IT guys.

I't also the silliest fucking thing I've ever heard. If I have the director and a couple higly placed people breathing down my neck at a phenomenal burn rate, I gotta say that if the dude from India cannot answer simple yes or no questions, The's the last of their computers that will ever enter the shipping dock.

They're giving support to Americans. This booboo feelings sensitivity BS is just one more reason the offshoring doesn't work. If I'm insulting the poor guy, I wont ever bother him or his company again.

Umm - have you tried rebooting the computer sir. Try that first.

whatever you do do not let the techies run the project. This isn't a technical solution but a business solution. The techies may think a fit gap tells them what they need to know to build a system but the reality is unless someone one really understands Hal the system is used and what the LOB need you will wind up with a mess. The IT folks will focus on the IT aspects and forget there is a whole organizational component that can derail them even if the system works.

I've seen to many projects where the focus is on getting the system to work and when the users finally get involves it's " we don't do things this way and that's not what we need." The project points to the fit gap and or requirements and it's "that's how x does it be we do it this way. The requirement says that you just didn't do it right." At that point senior LOB management starts complaining IT is replacing a working system with a piece of crap. The order then comes down to fix it and you are stuck.

YOU DIDN'T GET THE JOKE.

I got the joke. That's why it wasn't a whoosh.

Had the BIOS authors intended the error to say that

Lol, bios has some the worst english I've ever read.

I'm not sure I follow your analogy

I'll clarify. Suppose a city has ordinances requiring certain building codes be followed for new construction.

In some cities the city employs all its own inspectors. If just one of those inspectors can be bribed, does that really mean the organization (city) is not serious about the codes being followed? That seems a stretch.

In other cities, in addition to city employees, there are 3rd party consulting companies that can perform inspections, prepare reports, and submit them to the city. Provided the building developer provides the city a report done by one of these companies, the city will authorize an occupancy permit or whatever. So now if one employee of one of the consulting companies is corrupt does that really mean the city is somehow corrupt or not serious about buildings being to code? That seems a huge stretch.

Similarly, in many cases things like "environmental impact assessments" are not done by the country itself, instead they are done by universitys, researchers, and dedicated consulting companies. If you can find a student research or consultancy employee willing to fudge some data to get a 'pass'... that hardly means the whole country isn't serious about the environment.

If some corrupt organization granted the filming permits when they weren't supposed to, the government can always revoke them anyways.

Of course.

It's hard to buy something when you don't know it exists.

Perhaps they should have tried advertising.