5. Implementing with PHP: Standalone Scripts
THIS CHAPTER DESCRIBES HOW TO REUSE EXISTING code libraries to perform administrative tasks in PHP and how to write standalone and one-liner scripts. It gives a couple extremely paradigm-breaking projects that put PHP to use outside the Web environment.
For me, one of the most exciting aspects of participating in the development of PHP has been watching the language grow from the simple Web-scripting-specific language of the PHP 3 (and earlier) days into a more robust and versatile language that also excels at Web scripting.
There are benefits to being an extremely specialized language:
It is easy to be the perfect tool for a given job if you were written specifically to do that job. It is easier to take over a niche than to compete with other, more mature, general-purpose languages.
On the other hand, there are also drawbacks to being an extremely specialized language:
Companies rarely focus on a single niche to the exclusion of all others. For example, even Web-centric companies have back-end and systems scripting requirements. Satisfying a variety of needs with specialist languages requires developers to master more than one language. Common code gets duplicated in every language used.
As a Web professional, I see these drawbacks as serious problems. Duplicated code means that bugs need to be fixed in more than one place (and worse, in more than one language), which equates with a higher overall bug rate and a tendency for bugs to live on in lesser-used portions of the code base. Actively developing in a number of languages means that instead of developers becoming experts in a single language, they must know multiple languages. This makes it increasingly hard to have really good programmers, as their focus is split between multiple languages. Alternatively, some companies tackle the problem by having separate programmer groups handle separate business areas. Although that can be effective, it does not solve the code-reuse problem, it is expensive, and it decreases the agility of the business.
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In their excellent book The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, David Thomas and Andrew Hunt suggest that all professional programmers learn (at least) one new language per year. I agree whole-heartedly with this advice, but I often see it applied poorly. Many companies have a highly schizophrenic code base, with different applications written in different languages because the developer who was writing them was learning language X at the time and thought it would be a good place to hone his skills. This is especially true when a lead developer at the company is particularly smart or driven and is able to juggle multiple languages with relative ease.
This is not pragmatic.
The problem is that although you might be smart enough to handle Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Java, C++, and C# at the same time, many of the people who will be working on the code base will not be able to handle this. You will end up with tons of repeated code. For instance, you will almost certainly have the same basic database access library rewritten in each language. If you are lucky and have foresight, all the libraries will at least have the same API. If not, they will all be slightly different, and you will experience tons of bugs as developers code to the Python API in PHP.
Learning new languages is a good thing. I try hard to take Thomas and Hunt's advice. Learning languages is important because it expands your horizons, keeps your skills current, and exposes you to new ideas. Bring the techniques and insights you get from your studies with you to work, but be gentle about bringing the actual languages to your job.
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In my experience, the ideal language is the one that has a specialist-like affinity for the major focus of your projects but is general enough to handle the peripheral tasks that arise. For most Web-programming needs, PHP fills that role quite nicely. The PHP development model has remained close to its Web-scripting roots. For ease of use and fit to the "Web problem," it still remains without parallel (as evidenced by its continually rising adoption rate). PHP has also adapted to fill the needs of more general problems as well. Starting in PHP 4 and continuing into PHP 5, PHP has become aptly suited to a number of non-Web-programming needs as well.
Is PHP the best language for scripting back-end tasks? If you have a large API that drives many of your business processes, the ability to merge and reuse code from your Web environment is incredibly valuable. This value might easily outweigh the fact that Perl and Python are more mature back-end scripting languages.
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