PHP is cool again... I guess.

[joer80]

A lot of the hate wordpress gets is from people doing it wrong or being handed a website that was done wrong.  The "right" way to do them now is to use a custom fields plugin like metabox and then updates are very similar to a processwire website.  There is a custom post type the client accesses and adds posts to, and they dont mess with the design side at all.  You can even lock them out of it using roles.  You just have to use a little restraint and hit the dynamic data button on your page builder instead of typing it in.  

And bricks builder is much better than the more popular elementor.  Clean code, made in vue3.  Even has php blocks.  Done the right way takes away many of the arguments people use against it.  I can pop one out at $130 an hour using something like frames that has predesigned rows.  https://getframes.io/

[gornycreative]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:51 PM, joer80 said:

I can pop one out at $130 an hour using something like frames that has predesigned rows.

Frames reminded me a lot of Pinegrow - https://pinegrow.com/ - which has some pretty handy shortcuts in the WP version for breaking out flat HTML designs into loop and block files. Once Yootheme Pro started incorporating real-time previews of custom fields and post/page types it finally started catching up to the flexibility and convenience of certain types of PW builds. I am still finding it faster to work in PW, even though I have had a lot more experience with WP.

[FireWire]

I stumbled on this video by Primeagen. If you're not familiar, he's a highly experience polyglot developer that uses a lot of different languages regularly and talks about them on his channel.

His content isn't really my style (I think this is one of the first "reaction" videos I've ever watched), but I enjoyed seeing him get reintroduced to PHP, especially since he states that he hasn't used it since PHP 5.x. The video he reviews is also a really great introductions to modern features of PHP 8+ that I think more developers should adopt- both because they are totally cool and really do provide a better developer experience. So come for the "PHP is cool again", stay for the syntax we should all be using.
 

 

The original video was by the same person that @wbmnfktr shared in this comment earlier in the thread, if you haven't watched his other videos, check them out!

 

[wbmnfktr]

20 hours ago, FireWire said:

His content isn't really my style (I think this is one of the first "reaction" videos I've ever watched)

He has different formats, but yes... "reaction" videos are special. Still I really enjoyed this one (and the original video).

[FireWire]

Also want to point out how the video clearly shows that if you write PHP, a very fast and expensive sports car will show up in your garage. You can't argue with that, it's right there next to his big reaction face.

[FireWire]

On 6/17/2023 at 6:50 PM, FireWire said:

So at what point do we acknowledge that there's a difference between saving time in our work and offloading it onto our clients? I use PW to define the client experience. No layout builder, they just enter content and it works and looks like it's supposed to.

I'm coming back here to say that RockPageBuilder has made me a convert. It addresses every concern I've ever had with page builders, fully stop. On top of that, provides powerful modularity that can help speed up future projects. Worth every penny. Outstanding job by @bernhard

[FireWire]

I like this thread, so I'm back to bump.

Everyone has stacks! MEAN, MERN, TALL, LAMP, MEVN, RSTY, VILT, FLIP, PILF, DUMB, HALP... stacks are neat! It's cool when you can make a word out of tools! It makes it easier to argue over! I made some of those up!

I'm planning out my current project and it needs a stack, or I'm not a Real Web Developer™

What is that stack you (didn't) ask? PATH.

I'm putting the finishing touches on a full stack application I built over the last month using the TALL stack (Tailwind, Alpine, Laravel, Livewire). I've been jumping back and forth between that and ProcessWire and may write a post about the experience (when I can finally get enough time to do it). I've seen talk in the forums about ProcessWire alongside other tools like Laravel and want to share some firsthand information as far as differences, similarities, comparing how each handles the same task, when to consider one over the other, and takeaways that are going to influence how I use ProcessWire on upcoming projects. Also worth mentioning is how much I, and I cannot stress this enough, hate Tailwind and why I'm still going to use it. Before you ask, it's not because I can't spell "PATH" without the "T".

I start out every project with research before writing code and in this case it's been a deeper dive into htmx. Along the way I have been reading Hypermedia Systems, a book written by the authors of htmx. It's free to read online, and I recommend it to everyone here. The contents of the book take the web back to basics, understanding it's core technology, and the importance of extending it's functionality, rather than fight it the way that client-heavy tools like React have chosen to do. PHP and PHP developers have a lot to gain from this approach and embracing that mentality, even if you choose not to use htmx.

While my "stack" comment was a little flippant, the fact is that you can build ProcessWire applications and sites with dynamic content that provides an SPA-like experience without the SPA which is better for users, much more efficient, and provides a far better developer experience.

Towards the topic of this post, I can't help but notice the continual renewed interest in alternatives to JavaScript as a full stack solution and to an extent (as noted in the videos above) an uptick in consideration for PHP as something to consider. As also discussed above, how much JavaScript fatigue is turning into JavaScript burnout. Anyway, here's a hot take by Theo that looks cold in comparison to the heat people are bringing in the comments calling him out (worth the click-through to read).

One of the things that Laravel and ProcessWire have in common are modularity and the number of powerful tools built into their APIs, something I think about when hearing conversations about other PHP frameworks. So, bump in relevance to this video. You can already tell this guy is going to miss the mark because he doesn't have a Lamborghini in his preview pic SMH.

 

 

[Jonathan Lahijani]

23 hours ago, FireWire said:

What is that stack you (didn't) ask? PATH.

Hey man, I coined that term! (patent pending! j/k)

I would really love to hear your Laravel/ProcessWire experience and comparison in terms of web application development.  I too have been working on a very large webapp with ProcessWire over the last 6 months using ProcessWire, Alpine and HTMX (no need for Tailwind since it's completely admin side, although I did nearly completely develop AdminThemeBootstrap as an experiment during this project which I may or may not use in the future on it).

[FireWire]

30 minutes ago, Jonathan Lahijani said:

Hey man, I coined that term!

Oh yeah? PATH is so *checks date of tweet* last year. The new stack is PHAT.

"Whats the difference between PATH and PHAT"
"Nothing, but one is going to appeal to kids from the 90s"

32 minutes ago, Jonathan Lahijani said:

Laravel/ProcessWire experience and comparison in terms of web application development

My takeaway, and why it's relevant to devs here in the forum, is that ProcessWire is the right choice for a lot of situations. Side by side comparisons implementing the same thing in each platform makes an objective case for both and, from a technical point of view, my application could have been built in ProcessWire.

1 hour ago, Jonathan Lahijani said:

I too have been working on a very large webapp with ProcessWire

Heck yeah. If/when possible, posting a case study here in the forum would be a great read!

[FireWire]

Clickbait title? Yes. Content? Real gold.

 

 

[wbmnfktr]

10 minutes ago, FireWire said:

"Whats the difference between PATH and PHAT"
"Nothing, but one is going to appeal to kids from the 90s"

+1

?? 

 

[Ivan Gretsky]

Ok, if it's time for claiming rights for abbreviations I will put PATU here. It is unpoly instead of htmx. Umpoly is more close to PW way of doing things being an opinionated but more full fledged solution. More to that, Ryan once said he liked it more. And it is not such a buzzword as htmx nowadays, quite in the spirit of PW.

I even have two logo ideas for that to choose from:

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patu_digua

2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patu

The only small thing left is to actually build something meaningful with it))

[FireWire]

5 hours ago, Ivan Gretsky said:

I even have two logo ideas for that to choose from

Well, one is a spider and the other is a club that I'd use to kill spiders with. I vote for Padu #2.

[szabesz]

FYI, JetBrains reports:

• State of Developer Ecosystem Report 2024
  • https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2024/
• The State of PHP 2024
  • https://laravel-news.com/the-state-of-php-2024