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0 pointsJadeNB3y ago0 comments

> Widely known because the token names were surfaced to users in error messages, so some common syntax mistakes would produce deeply unhelpful "Unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM" errors. Hopefully they eventually did something about it, but it was like that for years and was one of the many things that put me off PHP for life.

One can like or dislike PHP for a variety of reasons, but surely being put off it for life because a non-English string is exposed to the end user is a bit much.

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omnicognate3y ago

As another commenter said it was "one of many things". Also, it's not the fact that it was non-English that was off-putting. It's more the fact that the T_ identifier was used, presumably via a macro.

People are often defensive about PHP, but at the end of the day we choose our tools. I wrote a significant amount of PHP for a brief period and out of maybe 20 or so languages I've used professionally I found it by a wide margin the least pleasant to work with. Supposedly it has improved a lot, and I'm glad if so. But I have no desire to use it again, and am unlikely to ever have a reason to.

josefx3y ago

Also the only information available to the developer when it was added in PHP 3 in 1997, good luck Googling that error. They didn't add the actual token to the error message until PHP 5.4 over a decade later.

chris_wot3y ago

No, it shows a certain sloppiness around the language. This has all been cleaned up and a lot of effort has gone into resolving most issues in PHP.

j00573y ago

"One of the many things", so not the only thing, but a thing nonetheless.

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