PHP is different. Unlike Java for example, there is no formal community, and no formal community process. PHP does not see itself as controlled by a company, or even large corporate players. PHP is not developed, it kind of grows. People using other languages see this as a weakness, but I actually think of it as a strength of the language, the platform and the community.
PHP is used differently than for example Java. Successful PHP projects use different strategies. If you have listened to what Rasmus has been telling you in his speeches during the last two years, you might get an idea of how PHP is different, and why. If you are comparing the approach MySQL has been using in the Dell DVD webshop benchmark uncontest with the other PHP approaches, you can see some of these principles applied.
Unfortunately, for many of these principles and methodologies no fancy names exist. So in my untalk on the PHP unconference at
PHP Vikinger I invite you to describe the principles that you think make PHP different, and then we will try to find fancy names for them in order to be able to discuss them, and promote them.
I think this is important - nobody would have taken "put procedure call parameters into CGI parameters and just call them instead of building large XML requests to encapsulate everything" serious before it was called RESTful. And few people can understand Rasmus "scale by request and not by session, build lightweight and frameworkless pages and use the language and its modules as a framework instead of including tons of classes per request" before we can find a number of fancy acronyms for these things.
What else can you find that PHP does differently? Can you build cases for these patterns? And can you find good names for them?
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