I find one of the great strengths of PHP is that I can code small, medium and large sites in a way appropriate to each. Small sites can be traditional mixed PHP and HTML pages because nothing is faster to code. Medium sites can us templates, db and some light controller logic. Large sites can deploy a framework to improve working as a team. This makes programmers scalable as well as their apps.

The great thing is that all of these applications use the same concepts, just rolled into or unrolled from libraries/frameworks. This allows you to code small, smart and fast, and makes it easy to scale up an app as needed.

I think PHP need a whole new take on the idea of “design patterns.” In Java/C++ there tend to be bad ways and a good way. In PHP there are still bad ways, but there are multiple good ways. When there is more than one way to do the same thing, it’s understanding the concept and choosing the right path given the requirements.

Perhaps these are more best practices, but there is a pattern feel to them as well. Traditional compiled language patterns apply to PHP when dealing with the purely algorithmic. But has any PHP group dealt with things like the Request and nailed down the key concepts and then shown 2-3 solid implementations depending on the scale and type of the application? We now need some guidance with how and when to best use exceptions. The list goes on.

Nice Summary.

>> John Lim expresses some skepticism about the inherent scalability properties of any language,
>> claiming its the developer skill not the language.

A slight correction. I certainly don’t believe it’s merely developer skill per se.
The technology needs to be mature enough to support scalability. But scalability does not come out of the box.

And you’re right there is an obsession with scalability which is irrelevant for the typical website. Not many sites will ever get slash-doted.