Yes there is something to be achieved. Clearly sticking to your principles prevents an apathetic drift to amorality, and sets an example for others to measure against. That is very valuable.

From 1999 to 2009, music sales dropped about 60%. People used to say they pirated for convenience because there was no modern commercial way to download-for-pay, or that they would still buy as much music even if they choose to download large amounts in addition to that - but now with it incredibly easy to buy music online and prices lower than ever, sales are not back up. People need to be intellectually honest and stop making disingenuous arguments and just accept that, yes, with it being very easy to pirate music, people are going to pirate music and artists will have to find other revenue sources or make less.

The JavaScript base library is really crappy, it misses some of the basic stuff you need even for dealing with web requests.

The prototype system is inconsistently implemented, and confusing.

The way objects are created looks like someone was sick over the code. It at least needs some syntactic sugar.

Late-binding leads to horrible bugs.

Scope chains are a mess, and cause bugs.

Yes, of course I know ASP.net isn't technically a language. It was a combination of VB.net and C#, but I thought just maybe my post was long enough without going into the nitty gritty of exactly where the issues lied.

You took a tiny inaccuracy in what I wrote, and decided to use it to write a whole load of speculation about me. I've actually written an interpreter (for a new language) in Haskell, I do know what I am talking about.

Ah, it seems I started a religious language war simply by sticking up for the tool I (have to) use ;-). I've not claimed PHP is the best language, only it is a comfortable language to me and many others. I just do not feel the pain some developer's always claim to feel, the inconsistencies just don't cause ongoing real world problems for me. I do not lose productivity on a day-to-day basis, they do not cause additional bugs (well, dynamic typing could - and a small number of other things could if you don't have a framework / know the issues), they do not make the code unreadable, and I do not have a problem hiring or training competent developers in the language. Whatever problems there are are easily resolved, and the smallest problem I have as a professional. A PHP developer not aware of the few issues to avoid, would also not have the basic field knowledge to avoid a myriad of other pitfalls that affect all programming languages. I know so many people will read this and think "but there are issues, and you can't excuse that" - I'm not - but I also firmly believe going through your professional career with so much anality for the small niggles doesn't help anybody, and that instead of whinging, people should put their energy into something more productive and positive, like concentrating on client ROI (and no, the 5 minutes you took looking up an inconsistently named function the other day doesn't make an identifiable difference to it), or perhaps, putting in RFCs for cleaning up the issues for PHP6.

The reason I develop in PHP is because I write consumer software to deploy on web hosts, and I don't chose the web hosts, and PHP is the overwhelming 'standard'. Probably the world would be better if Python replaced PHP, but bitching about the tools people use with arguments that the users of said tools simply cannot relate to, just seems ridiculous, and annoying because it just undermines the good work some seriously talented/hardworking/worthy people are doing. There is absolutely no reason PHP cannot continue to evolve, step by step, without forcing the entire hosting industry to adapt to something else (which is never going to happen).

I just ported a project from ASP.net to PHP, and my God the problems I saw in that language. Whenever I look at Ruby code, I just see the most inelegant syntax - it just looks like it was deliberately designed to combine being cryptic in some places, with pulling in English words where self-describing layout would be better. And then there are a host of academic languages which have elegant concepts, but poor libraries, or just are too over-complex for real world use.

For what it's worth, I think the world would be better off if Javascript was replaced too (I get annoyed by that much more than PHP actually, because some basic programming constructs are just hacks, and it is literally impossible to write elegant looking code).

For pragmatic-minded people, PHP is an extremely productive language to work in. No compiling, or waiting for compiling, no object files to mess with or get out of sync, and still relatively good speed. It really removes a lot of inconvenience between the programmer writing code and testing it. Despite what the detractors say, I've always found it a joy to work in (and I have worked in many languages).

The down-side has always been that the language also had many sloppy characteristics. Modern PHP has cleaned up a lot of the language design errors, and static typing is extremely useful for reducing quantity of bugs (I know this as I developed a PHP fork that enforces this and it's saved me many many times over the years). HHVM adds much more speed, so that really complex modern social webapps are really needing. There are still many small inconsistencies in the language, but it's not a big deal given the other advantages.

That's a very interesting perspective :).

I see privacy as something that's always existed, but just how well it could be upheld varies based upon context. So I never saw it as a kind of absolute in the first place.

On a related issue, I also do not like that people make it black & white - private, or not private. I think there's a lot of grey. For example, I don't think that "in a newspaper", "in a club", "on the street" and "with close friends" are all the same kind of 'public', and I think really the right to privacy has to be judged in a measured way based on these kinds of contexts. Another nuance is you might be fine being open in one group (e.g. a gay club), but not the wider population (being listed as gay in a public census).

Regarding rights, I don't like how discourse usually talks of them as if they are ordained by physics or God. They are things we choose to grant ourselves - they're a wonderful invention, but an invention, and we can add more, or make them more nuanced, as we democratically see fit.

Perhaps less privacy, but I cannot agree.

For instance, in India public kissing is heavily frowned upon.

A quick Google revealed academics actively look into the nuanced realities of the ancient world: https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/8947

I see the no-privacy argument come out a lot recently. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I do have to wonder if some element of the growth in the popularity of the argument comes from people working for social networks, contextual advertisers, cataloguers/mappers, wearable hardware companies, or government agencies, wanting to better have their position justified.

I have to say, I really do respect an honest interpretation of the harsh realities out there. It's so rare to see, you either get tub-thumbing from conservatives or extreme naivety from liberals.

I think though there is a better way, rather than fanatic vs whatever power side you pick. The US should be an example to the world, a positive role model that actually inspires people. There are plenty of people around the world who have grown up loving American ideals, and now hate everything it has become. Strategically, America is losing its European allies, it's morale, and it's bargaining position. I heard a good quote recently about how being conservative is about being scared and therefore doing what someone who is scared does. Does anybody want to live in a world where there is no real freedom and justice? It's not worth it. Loss of ethical behaviour is pernicious. You can see now every part of the political, judicial, media, corporate, and power, establishment, is eroding in lock-step. On the other hand, ideals can inspire and spread quickly. I think that is very real, not naive.

There's no reason America has to be a declining empire, people would support it again if it stood up for what is right. Continue using drones against militants, continue to have strong cybersecurity capabilities, continue to invest in new war technology - but do it within a framework of justice, transparency, and accept that freedom requires sacrifice. I would rather live free and be at risk of being blown up, than live under a fist. No doubt America does need to make some broader sacrifices - for example cut down on cheap imports made by controlled populations and foster greater (but more expensive) domestic production. Be honest and teach people this. Get people out from under their scared consumerist blanket.

So, there are enemies to be fought, but what really has to be defended, are principles and a positive future for us.

cpanels online editor used to add them (maybe still does), possibly others do. It's easy for an online editor to accidentally do if they put some LF's before closing a textarea tag.

I always pretty much assumed that anyone's net traffic would be passed through some kind of analysis, e.g. looking for certain keywords, or maybe some kind of Bayesian thing based on known 'offender patterns'. Usually I think conspiracy theories are nonsense, but in this case I think it's only to be expected that it's already happening in at least some places where packets flows through.

So I suppose the only difference here would be more is stored, but if the stuff the government is 'interested in' already was, the problem of 'false positives' possibly already existed.