JS on the server full of failure for many reasons, but the language isn't one of them. It's surprisingly sophisticated. There's a video series on youtube called "Crockford on JavaScript" that you should check out.

That's pretty much it. Function names and parameter order. It's a shame that it's basically impossible to fix at this point. Then again, they might not want to fix it.

PHP's biggest problem is that it's ridiculously easy to use. I can rant about why that turns insecure developers away from a language, but I think everyone is sick of hearing about that by now!

Why not?

It's supported everywhere as there are countless old gifs still in use. There also appears to have been a fairly recent resurgence in animated gifs (PBS). You see them all the time these days being used as an alternative to short movie clips. To my knowledge, there is no viable replacement for those yet. Attempts like apng and mng never got off the ground.

There isn't even any ideological reason to call for the elimination of the format. Even the burnallgifs website has moved on.

In short: The format enjoys broad support, it's still a popular format for new content, there is no viable alternative, and it's now patent free.

Try to relax, it's just an old image on a website. It's not the end of the world.

It's been shared too much. It's complete and total garbage.

I offered this earlier: From that incompetent screed, make a list of points of fact, eliminating any point that is opinion.

Now that you've reduced the content of that page significantly, eliminate any point that's flat-out wrong. Now eliminate any point that also applies to other popular languages.

To save some time, you could first eliminate anything that exposes the authors distaste or misunderstanding of dynamic typing. That should make the task a bit more manageable, as that's what makes up the bulk of that insufferable post.

Not much left, is there? Do you still think that PHP is a "fractal of bad design"?

Well, you might. You're welcome to that opinion. Let's just not pretend that it's based in the world of facts.

See, there's a reason you link to that nonsense. It's really long, and thus very time consuming for anyone to refute point-by-point. That makes you feel secure. After all, unless a refutation is comprehensive, you can just claim that your opponent couldn't refute the real important bits. The title also confirms "your" opinion, which you probably got from someone else. That makes you feel good. After all, if lots of people believe the same way you do, you can pretend your silly beliefs are true, and not just your personal opinion. If you had an actually reason to think that PHP was "objectively" worse than other languages, you'd have posted that instead.

Your post isn't any different than a creationist pointing at the Bible for "proof" of their silly beliefs. It's just as wrong, of course, for the same reasons.

I believe the claim you made was that "PHP has been objectively worse than practically every other language."

I'm still waiting. I'll wait forever, of course, as it's total nonsense.

You're new claim is that PHP has a "a comparatively shoddy security record". Nice misdirection. I'd like to see you defend that after you actually defend your silly nonsense from earlier, assuming you're still clinging to that absurdity.

Or, you know, you could just recognize that what you said was completely ridiculous and let it go. That's what I expected you'd do. Who knew that you'd double-down?

So you don't actually have an answer then.

Color me surprised.

"There was this one feature that was a potential security hole that has been disabled by default for more than a decade!" Doesn't exactly make your case!

Languages with security issues they've been forced to fix? What's the comment size limit again? Do languages with massive security issues "by design" that cannot be fixed without fundamentally changing the language count as well?

Pitiful. If you don't like PHP, fine. All I ask is that you don't pretend that your personal preference is somehow perfectly rational and objective.

Lots of people. How many of those read 18 year-old Dilbert cartoon's every day?

Judging from their site, they're not worried about 5k here and there. They could trim significantly more than that off fairly easily.

Objectively, you say?

Give it a go. How is it "objectively" worse than other popular languages?

This ought to be hilarious!

Know what's sad? You don't know how awful that page really is. You actually think it contains something of value.

Here's a fun exercise. From that pile of garbage, make a list of points of fact, eliminating any point that is opinion.

Now that you've reduced the content of that page significantly, eliminate any point that's flat-out wrong. Now eliminate any point that also applies to other popular languages.

Still think PHP is a "fractal of bad design"?

It looks like he got rid of the NaN != NaN nonsense point. (Why is that nonsense, you ask? See IEEE 754 -- I guess enough people pointed that bit of nonsense out to him. That and his old intransitivity argument and example seems to have vanished as well. Bet you didn't notice!)

Why did you find it inadequate? With what did you replace it?

It doesn't appear that way. The data suggest the exact opposite.

Why? Probably due to the lack of a viable alternative. Well, that and the fact that PHP isn't the disaster incompetent Slashdot users seem to think it is.

He said WITHOUT major design flaws.

Well, the strip is from 1995. Did you expect them to convert the whole archive to PNG just to make a few nerds feel better?

Well, it will be soon-- that platform is very ill -- it'll be stone dead in a moment. Can you hang around a couple of minutes? It won't be long.

Acute, obtuse, whatever. All we can say for sure is that neither one of them are right.

You get all of those things with packaged open web apps; stored locally, runs locally, has access to local resources. It's just like any other app. No network connection, "cloud" or "social network integration" required. You can find out more on Mozilla's website.

The level of control you get with FFOS should easily exceed your expectations.

Remember, it's not about this low-spec phone or even about FFOS, it's about *standards*. Mozilla wins when they force big players adopt important new standards. Mozilla wins if they get Android or iOS, or WP to support packaged web apps. Mozilla wins when their efforts make any impact on the market that benefits consumers.

This isn't unprecedented. Mozilla won against IE in the same sense. They're well behind IE and Chrome in marketshare, sure, but that wasn't what mattered.

I'll pitch support behind them because they're working toward a better mobile future for everyone. They're not out to build their own gulag next to MS, Apple, and Google, they're out to force them to unlock the gates.

Really, it doesn't matter what OS you prefer, it's well-worth backing Mozilla here. Their success can only benefit you in the long run, even if you never touch a FFOS phone.