Re: Jon Paris says that PHP not Easier to Learn than Java

I have been watching this thread, and it has become a programming language religious war such that many of the points being made are just plain foolish. Let me point some of them out:

The LDA is the dynamic type of RPG. Really? I don't think I heard anyone saying that the LDA is bad because you can drop anything you want into it. If that were the case, a lot of the structures used in RPG would be thrown out with the LDA. Consider for a moment, you can put anything you want into any data area, data queue, message, user space, user index, or data structure, to name a few. Yes, even data structures. I can use the same n characters in a data structure for packed data, zoned data, character data, integers, or any other data type via overlays, and that is a common practice. I have seen no one decrying that capability of RPG. This is really an example of dynamic typing in a strongly typed language. Not a problem. The problem with the LDA if you haven't been paying close attention is that there can be only one, for the whole job, and it is limited in size.

How about dynamic typing has no place in enterprise level programming because the compiler can't help you sort out conflicts. Yet even Java provides for dynamic typing and even provides the means for properly processing a group of mixed objects. One of these ways is a Collection, a group of objects, any kind of object, maybe a String, maybe an Integer, maybe a user defied object, any object. If you try to process an object from a collection in an unsupported way, you get a run-time error. Of course this is the real power of an OO language, and polymorphim is the name of the idea that you can process that mixed collection with say a copy method, and everything will work out all right without having to say if you are a String do copyString, and if you are an Integer do copyInteger. All you have to do is tell each object to copy and let the object decide how to do it.

Or, PHP is no good because it is dynamically typed. But you can think of PHP variables as a sort of collection on steroids. A PHP variable is not limited to containing objects, it can contain scalar values and arrays as well. And PHP provides a way to process it, to know what is in there without inspecting the value. It is really just a matter of preference.

And now I am not pointing out foolishness, but making a point of my own. For some, making the jump between monolithic procedural programming and OO is something like a tribesman from the jungles of New Guinea trying to make it in the corporate jungle of New York City. You have to learn a new language, and a new culture, and while the basic needs are the same, the structure/culture is entirely different. I am not speaking of RPG and Java here, but procedural languages and OO languages in general. Making the shift from one to the other is a total paradyme shift. A different way of thinking. Languages like PHP that let you work in a procedural context while you are comming to grips with objects can ease the transition. Not just from RPG to Java, but from any procedural language to any OO language. And maybe that could be from RPG to OO PHP.

Don't get me wrong, I am not dissing Java, and I am not promoting PHP. I like them both. And I like what RPG has become as well. I hope they all continue to grow and thrive. What I disslike are the religious wars. My programming language is better than your programming language, when we all know or should know that it is really a matter of personal preference. Visual Prolog anyone?

Mark Murphy
STAR BASE Consulting, Inc.
mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx