Talk:PHP

CVE

The recent addition of the vulnerability criticism is sourced merely to the CVE index page, leaving the reader to synthesise equivalent figures (in fact the editor said it themselves in the edit summary "it is really queries on the database which enable to derive these figures"). This is a primary source (WP:PSTS), and as such cannot be used as a reference. Note that I have no dispute over the figures; I'm sure they're accurate. But they must be sourced to a reference which actually states them as such. Oli Filth^(talk) 12:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Mmh... sure, but word fails me. It seems to suggest that someone saying something as a source is more important than the pure facts of a database (one may discuss the subjectivity of its constitution, but cannot discuss the objectivity of its actual contents). Well, I can always publish a web page somewhere which states these figures, but that looks a little bit stupid. Or maybe I could state how one can derive these figures in the talk page, say in this section, and keep the database citation? SuzieDerkins (talk) 13:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If you can provide links to actual results pages, that may be more suitable. Readers shouldn't have to resort to the article talk page in order to follow a cite! (The link as you originally presented it would be like citing the BBC news website, rather than a specific article, and leaving the reader to find the original information) Oli Filth^(talk) 13:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well. There would be a dozen result pages (2 for every year, with and without PHP as a keyword in the search), so it is not really practical as a citation. Well, I've added a page on my web site with the figures and how they are derived from the NVD, and I have added a reference to it, but this looks really strange, IMVHO. SuzieDerkins (talk) 14:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I read the primary source discussion page. I'm wondering whether expecting someone to query the database and taking note of the result count is really a specialist knowledge, or just common knowledge, once one is on the query page... Moreover, although I do not feel a worthy authority about PHP security, I do feel that I'm as good (or bad) as anyone else for dividing two numbers to compute a ratio. SuzieDerkins (talk) 14:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

PHP category

The category Category:PHP programming language is populated with things for the language (PHP, PHP syntax and semantics, List of PHP libraries, etc.) but also numerous projects written in PHP. Suggestions on two category names: one for PHP stuff, one for projects written in PHP? Cburnett (talk) 21:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Python is setup like that? Okay, sounds good... Gary King (talk) 21:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Article is too technical

In my opinion, this article is still too technical. I'd appreciate it if anyone who has the time could help out and make it less technical by removing information that an average reader would either not understand or not care about. Also, please feel free to include information about PHP that would interest a typical reader; I would imagine this would include information regarding its popularity (a lot of people see URLs end in .php but wonder why PHP is so popular), and information such as how PHP can be vulnerable and its downsides and openness to hackers, since people generally understand that programming languages are never immune to hackers. And etc. Gary King (talk) 21:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Why should we make Wikipedia less useful and serious? This is not a computer magazine for pointy-haired managers, but a serious education and research resource. Some of us want to know the features of different programming languages, not how PHP will reduce TCO, shorten time to market and all that generic crap. 12:42, 23 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.125.117.197 (talk)

I dot not agree with this statement, and I think that removing material, especially the only piece of light criticism about PHP and the security issues surrounding it. So I'm putting back the popularity section. SuzieDerkins (talk) 10:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "such as how PHP can be vulnerable and its downsides and openness to hackers"? Last time I checked (a few hours ago) PHP had no publicly known vulnerabilities. If you know of any then feel free to report them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.37.218 (talk) 12:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. By the contrary, if anyone would take the time to make this article more precise and even better structured, I would be happy to read it again. A good structure would also allow for an introductory statement before entering technical details, which would be good for beginners, without ruining the technical value of the article. Doru001 (talk) 06:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Please rewrite the introduction so that it is accessible to a lay audience. As it stands now, it is nearly meaningless to anyone who basically does not already know what PHP is. It IS too technical. There is no reason to omit information in the rest of the entry that the authors and editors feel is relevant. But there is EVERY reason to make it accessible to people who are just coming to this cold. The introduction should be especially clear. I have a highly technical background in another field and I find this introduction does not give me any sense of what PHP DOES (as opposed to what it IS). Eperotao (talk) 15:35, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Restoration of criticism section

Based on my reading of the comments above, it doesn't look like consensus was ever reached regarding the removal/presence of a criticism section.

I am restoring it as of this version: 01:41, 23 March 2008 by Gary King. I have added a Template:Criticism-section tag.

I don't care for criticism sections, but

• Criticism sections, while discouraged, are not forbidden.
• Removal of a criticism section because they're discouraged isn't sufficient justification for also removing verifiable and properly sourced information.
• The criticism section was removed en masse, so some verifiable and properly sourced information was removed - perhaps as collateral damage.

Let's work to towards consensus - even if that means getting rid of the section - but let's not remove valid information. Thanks, WalterGR (talk | contributions) 04:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, meant to also say: Gary King said in his edit summary that others had pointed out there are "good articles" that have criticism sections, and asked for proof of this. 50_Cent and The_Lion_King were the first articles that I found after clicking on just a few links on Wikipedia:Good_articles. WalterGR (talk | contributions) 04:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

As previously, I've removed all improperly cited items from this list (see the end of the discussion above: Talk:PHP#Unexplained criticism). Again, feel free to add these back if you can find suitable refs.

Note that I'm not expressing an opinion about whether a separate Criticism section is suitable for this article, merely that these items have been sitting around uncited for far too long collecting cruft. Oli Filth^(talk) 08:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It's a more manageable size now, and I will shuffle the items around so that they fit into the article somewhere appropriate. Gary King (talk) 15:34, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks a ton, WalterGR (talk | contributions) 03:08, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

So, where did it go? Did some PHP fanboy delete it without consensus? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.129.46 (talk) 12:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I still think it should be merged into the article. Anyways, I'll get to it and hopefully we can end up with something that we all agree on. Gary King (talk) 08:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Popularity and Security

Content about security vulnerabilities was previously in a "Popularity" section, suggesting that the number of vulnerabilities in PHP is due to its popularity. I moved the security content into its own section for a few reasons.

• If popular software we like has a large number of vulnerabilities, we credit the software's popularity.
• If popular software we don't like has a large number of vulnerabilities, we blame it on the programmers' incompetence.
• Unless there's a credible source that claims the vulnerability count in PHP, or in software in general, is directly correlated to its popularity, arguing this in the article would be original research.

Thanks, WalterGR (talk | contributions) 03:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I like this update. Thanks. Gary King (talk) 03:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I just put the figures there because I did not dare create such a section. The security discussion could belong to a "Criticism" Section if there was one, but that would mean arguing about the root cause of the problem (language, people), what is more prone to lengthy arguments, while the figures are factual. Well, the very fact that a programming language deserves such a section with this contents amounts to some criticism. SuzieDerkins (talk) 01:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This Security section was not clear enough in order to distinguish Software/Script Bugs and PHP Bugs. At first glance, the casual reader could think that the PHP programming language is insecure, which is not the case. The security problems are caused by poor programming and the use of old PHP versions which have register_globals enabled by default, among other old problems which have been corrected in later versions.VShaka (talk) 12:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Certification

I added a brief mention of PHP certification to the article after I noticed the PHP Certification article was an orphaned stub. dimo414 (talk) 23:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

mod_php

I see that mod_php redirects here. Considering (as I understand it) that PHP is a language and mod_php is an Apache web server module, I think that there should be a separate mod_php article. Perl and mod_perl, Python and mod_python, Ruby and mod_ruby, etc., all have separate articles. What do you think? Dstroma (talk) 05:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

if there's enough notable and verifiable material to create a separate mod_php article which can stand on its own and is likely to be expanded later then go right ahead. I don't believe there is. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, mod_php should be included in the apache article and be referred from here, or it should have its own article and be referred from here and from apache. Doru001 (talk) 09:02, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Logo Location?

Does anyone besides me not like the new location of the PHP logo? techietim (talk) 14:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It's an experiment; I was trying it out on a few articles to see if it would be a good future direction for the infobox presentation. Consensus thus far appears to be that people don't like it, which is fine; feel free to revert it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

how to uninstall php

Sorry to be posting this here, but you guys wrote a great article so you must know something about the subject.

I'm trying to uninstall php from my computer, but it's not as easy as deleting PHP5 from "my computer."

Are there any resources on the internet that will show me how to uninstall. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.15.93.25 (talk) 03:48, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

what !, there is an uninstaller, check the programs list in your control panel (windows) or a remove feature of your pakage manager (linux) it's very simple, really lol - Gunnar Guðvarðarson (My Talk) 06:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Speed optimization section

I believe PHP is programmed in C. Can anyone confirm that it is C++ ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by VShaka (talk • contribs) 17:39, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Check it out: http://www.ohloh.net/projects/php/analyses/latest Altonbr (talk) 17:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

There are a few PHP extensions written in C++, but I don't think it's worth mentioning. Philipolson (talk) 06:30, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The PHP codebase is 100% C.

Moggie2002 (talk) 13:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Old page history

I have moved some old page history that was at the PHP page; it contains one content edit and many less useful edits. It's now at talk:PHP/History. Graham87 12:03, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

5.27 sort of retracted

Version 5.27 is sort of retracted. The mention some gibberish called "regressions" that's not defined anywhere on their site that their search system finds and that there's a bunch of bugs with it and they removed the big announceent from their front page. They claim at http://www.php.net/downloads.php#v5 that they are going likely do a 5.28 or something to fix the bugs. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 01:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Software_regression Jerazol (talk) 09:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

- It was deleted simply because it didn't seem worth downloading. 5.2.8 came soon thereafter, so I don't see this as wikipedia material. Philipolson (talk) 21:47, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

PHP Data Objects

"PHP Data Objects" redirects here, though this page contains no information on the extension. This may be because some previous version did, and that this information has since been removed. The redirect should be removed, or a new article should be created based on the avaliable documentation and / or other relevant sources of information: http://php.net/manual/en/book.pdo.php PaulAquired (talk) 10:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Problem with Internet Explorer

If I try to directly access or search "PHP" on Wikipedia, Internet Explorer presents me with a dialog box attempting to download the page. I've never seen this before on Wiki. Has anybody else seen this, and should this (if it's prevalent), lead to a discussion on the naming of this page? JeffHCross (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.171.36 (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

"It can automatically detect the language of the user." - What language?

What does "language of the user" mean, in the Usage section? Is it a programming language on server side, a natural language on the web page, a natural language of the client's GUI, or what language? Doru001 (talk) 09:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but what does it do?

Please may I suggest that this article begins with a statement of what PHP actually does, in language that one's grandmother could understand. I have read the article twice, and I have very little idea. It is to do with scripting, but what's that? Something to do with the web is all I can make out. NOKESS (talk) 06:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC) Sebastian

I think the lead is pretty clear: "PHP is a scripting language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages." The reader who doesn't know what a scripting language is, or what a dynamic web page is, may click on the provided wikilinks to gain a better understanding. Incorporating material from those articles into this one would run counter to wiki principles. Robert K S (talk) 08:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Sebastian took the works right out of my mouth. He's absolutely right. See my comments at the article being too technical (above), which I posted a few minutes before I read this.

Robert, the lead is NOT clear. These further links are also technical. Using more jargon to define jargon is not helpful. This "explanation" is much harder than it needs to be. I just had someone write me an email explaining what PHP was and in one sentence I understood what it was--after having repeatedly struggled to read this article without understanding it. I came back here to see if this would now make more sense. Nope! Eperotao (talk) 15:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

What is that one sentence? Philipolson (talk) 01:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)