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PHP for dummies

<rant>

I’ve been thinking about the current crop of programming languages that currently abound, and I’ve come to the conclusion that PHP,RoR etc. are just a waste of time if you are really serious about learning something job wise. Too many kids leave school, buy PHP for Dummies and then proclaim themselves “a web developer”. Give them a look at something a little more proper and they’d run a mile.. it’s not just CSS and PHP out there in the Real World™ and they’d be stuck - write a framework in C#/.NET and make the transition from unique to Master Pages, anyone?

It also really bugs me when people say “SQL? Yep, grab a copy of MySQL as it’s free and the same as SQL Server” - of course it isn’t!

Technical differences in MySQL and SQL Server when it comes down to the ANSI SQL standard:

  • MySQL does not support Triggers, SQL Server does.
  • MySQL does not support User Defined Functions, SQL Server does.
  • MySQL does not have Cursor Support, SQL Server does.
  • MySQL does not support Stored Procedures, SQL Server does.
  • MySQL does not have FULL JOIN capabilities, SQL Server does.
  • MySQL has limited Import/Export capabilities, SQL Server has full support for Import/Export.
  • MySQL has limited Transaction Support while SQL Server offers full Transaction Support.

I’m a complete fan of FOSS/non-MS stuff and I do know PHP and MySQL pretty well but unfortunately in the Big World out there you need MS SQL Server knowledge most of the time to keep abreast. I did implement some PHP into a site at work, it did fit the spec pretty well as it was to go on a Solaris box running Apache, hence no MS-based code.

</rant>

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 7:32 pm and is filed under code, coding, misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “PHP for dummies”

  1. Alex Says:
    April 15th, 2008 at 10:20 pm

    Marc - I expect better. You’re living in the Microsoft world of MySQL circa 2005. Besides, if you have are using a proper language a la Java or .NET you don’t need stored procedures or triggers. Keep business logic in code and keep data in databases! We even use code to create our database so we don’t have to bother with SQL at all. Hibernate does it all for us.

  2. Marc Says:
    April 16th, 2008 at 2:44 am

    I was trying to point out the current crop of “developers” who insist on using PHP/MySQL because it’s “in”.. no matter it’s not regarded as Enterprise class.

    Java and/or .NET have the tools to do the job, I’m not being MS-centric here, far from it - it just bugs me any chump will buy a PHP in 24hrs book and then proclaim to be a developer and extol the virtues of PHP without actually having used it properly.

    I wrote a site for work in PHP (as said above), purely because it fitted the requirements and the Solaris box, if it fits I am all for it :)

    I just installed vs2005 on my new laptop, I can’t believe how rusty my coding has become (it’s been nearly seven months since I was at work!).. time to start swatting up again I think.

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