[keith smith]

--- On Sat, 2/20/10, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:

> From: Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com>
> Subject: Re: Re:
> To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
> Date: Saturday, February 20, 2010, 8:13 PM
> On Sat, 2010-02-20 at 19:12 -0700,
> Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> > Let's not devolve into a favorite language war. 
> There are situations where Python is a great language
> choice, and situations where it's terrible.
> > Every language choice comes down to what you want to
> accomplish.
> >   Some languages are good for rapid
> development of websites (Ruby, PHP, etc...).
> >   Some languages are good for systems
> management scripts (Python, Perl, etc...).
> >   Some languages are good for
> developing large web systems intended to be maintained for
> years (Java, others).
> >   Some languages are good for
> developing packaged COTS software (C++, Java, etc...).
> >   Some languages are good for system
> software and embedded devices (C, C++, etc...).
> >   Many languages are most useful in
> very specific niches (Forth, Lisp, ADA, XSLT, LOLCode,
> Objective-C, etc...)
> > 
> > Most languages have multiple areas where they work
> well, and multiple areas where they're not so good.
> > What exactly you want to accomplish in your software
> development should drive the language choice, although it
> rarely does.
> > 
> > No one particular language is the best choice for
> learning how to write software; each type of software
> development will drive a different choice of the best
> "first" language to learn.
> > 
> > Mike, you need to specify your goal more precisely in
> order for the community here to give you a useful
> recommendation that will help you best accomplish that
> goal.
> > 
> > ==Joseph++
> > 
> > Kevin Fries wrote:
> > > Wow, now I know why it is so hard to hire people
> that are competent!  Python is fun, not right, but
> fun... Thats your argument?  If you want to know why we
> refuse to hire Python programmers at our company, I can give
> you real facts on why you should not use that language as a
> place to learn... Not opinions.
> > > 
> ----
> and then of course there is the motivation to learn a
> language for
> gainful employment which in some circles would be none of
> the above.
> 
> I think Kevin was looking at it from his particular
> employment angle.
> 
> Personally, I am particularly amused by Joseph's placing
> both Ruby and
> PHP both in the same 'rapid web development' category
> because my
> experience has been that it takes me 1/4 to 1/5 the time to
> accomplish
> 'rapid web development' with RoR than it does with PHP.
> 
> The only thing worse than trying to decipher 'other
> peoples' PHP code is
> trying to decipher 'other peoples' perl code.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 
> -- 

Interesting statement that using a framework for Ruby would be 4 times faster than coding in raw PHP.  Have you used a PHP Framework? And if so did that speed up your development?

Keith