Login
You're viewing the discuss.systems public feed.
  • 🇺🇦🇵🇸 Anna Filinaafilina@phpc.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:18 AM

    Really sad to see people I respected take a big dump on PHP today. It was unnecessary. This is open source. Things run on too few donations and mostly unpaid work.

    These people work hard. They deal with entitled users in bug trackers. They sift through slop reports and slop contributions. They have to defend their infra from thieves who can afford to lose more money in an hour than they will not make in a lifetime. They have to drop everything when their unpaid project has an emergency.

    💬 23🔄 252⭐ 347

Replies

  • 🇺🇦🇵🇸 Anna Filinaafilina@phpc.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:19 AM

    I very rarely see such behavior on the Fedi, and it fills me with hopelessness.

    You can be a better person. You can feel angry and exhausted without hurting those on your side of the struggle.

    💬 1🔄 3⭐ 39
  • Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)iris@neuromatch.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 4:35 AM

    @afilina I suspect spillover from the way people jockey for in-group status by loudly extolling the group's favorite programming language, code editor, etc. and denigrating the rest. It's hard to unlearn. Not an excuse, but possibly an explanation. [sorry in advance if this is obvious and I'm just explaining your point back to you]

    💬 2🔄 1⭐ 7
  • EQeq@mas.to
    Oct 22, 2026, 5:15 AM

    @iris @afilina It has always been "in" to hate on PHP after seeing it once at version 3.1. That is decades ago, it has evolved a lot.

    Those open source people is doing this work even though they know there are billion dollar companies using their work for free every day. Running their complete businesses on it without even thinking about donating as much as a bugfix even.

    And the biggest of them all instead of helping and contributing, made their own version and ran off with it...

    💬 1🔄 1⭐ 10
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Ryanfullywoolly@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 8:52 PM

    @iris @afilina I don't know if I saw the same posts, but most of what I saw was dark humor between PHP and cert issues brought to us by the number 4. I'm not in IT or a software dev, but what I saw really came across as blowing off steam during the day while working under insane pressure. I also saw posts about how it ran ~70% of the Internet which is both awesome and adds to the scale of the franticness.

    Sorry it filled you with hopelessness. This post mortem is insightful framing for me.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Ryanfullywoolly@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 10:19 PM

    @afilina @iris that's really awful. I can see why it'd be so disheartening.

    I think they should be proud of their response and, again, the adoption rate. They've made something that people can use and works and has worked in production for decades.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Scottscottearle@poorlyrendered.com
    Oct 22, 2026, 5:17 AM

    @afilina Additionally, the vulnerabilities go back 20 years, so they were hardly obvious or easy to find. People should be supportive of the people who created and still maintain this open source software, rather than shitting on them.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 9
  • IbiPouakai@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 1:09 PM

    @scottearle
    and ironically, it's discovered under GPT Sol's assistance.
    Folk on mastodon used to call AI slop machine, but it can be helpful sometimes

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 1🔄 1⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Es Reicht! :debian_logo:esreicht@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 6:20 AM

    @afilina
    And never forget - admins who are too lazy to update their ancient systems because "it works, probably not if updated" and bosses who care more for money than secure systems are the biggest part of the problem.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 2
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 4
  • 💬 0🔄 1⭐ 4
  • lumettarialumettaria@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 6:42 AM

    @afilina It's pretty grim that PHP is used in businesses making untold amounts of money yet the project itself isn't supported by those same entities. Maybe support the FOSS projects that make you money, looking at you Meta, Adobe, @WordPress

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 4
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Iliasiamilias
    Oct 22, 2026, 7:18 AM

    @afilina it's always those who have contributed nothing that complain the most.

    💬 1🔄 1⭐ 8
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 3🔄 0⭐ 0
  • ddgddg@techhub.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 8:56 AM

    @TheWolvesShogun @afilina I actually enjoy it, particularly with good frameworks behind it, but then again, I'm sure what I do with it doesn't meet many people's arbitrary definition of "real" programming.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • The Wolves' ShogunTheWolvesShogun@mstdn.party
    Oct 22, 2026, 9:03 AM

    @ddg @afilina

    Real programming is being able to modify your program so you can use pointers in order to show you octects in case of hard debugging work.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • The Wolves' ShogunTheWolvesShogun@mstdn.party
    Oct 22, 2026, 9:28 AM

    @ddg @afilina
    Real programming...
    Try to program a car's software in PHP.
    (I just did the lights of the PSA vehicles in 2010 ; milliseconds to earn.)
    PHP is a high-level language, so easy to use for bad programmers. Like Python or Matlab.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • ddgddg@techhub.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 9:48 AM

    @TheWolvesShogun @afilina I guess my system used for relaying appointment, imaging and result data between medical facilities and equipment for medical staff and patients, with a couple million unique medical reports generated, is not real programming then 🤷

    The “real programming” gatekeepers never fail to show up.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 1
  • The Wolves' ShogunTheWolvesShogun@mstdn.party
    Oct 22, 2026, 10:00 AM

    @ddg @afilina
    We not work at the same level, that's all.
    That doesn't mean your work has no value... Not at all.
    Nowadays, when you want to create a modern software, you need plenty of engineers. Just imagine how many engineers there is behind all kind of AI (ChatGPT, Grok, by example)... At least 20.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • ddgddg@techhub.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 10:11 AM

    @TheWolvesShogun @afilina you were the one dismissing php use in “real programming”. I’ll never be nearly as good as you are in your area, and at the same time my customers of 10 years wouldn’t hire you over me. Different tools and different skills for different needs, and all of them real.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • fluffy 💜fluffy@plush.city
    Oct 22, 2026, 9:43 PM

    @TheWolvesShogun @afilina define "real programming." I used to be a hardcore C++ dev with Strong Opinions on things and these days I mostly write Python because I actually enjoy it.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Dualtronicfelix@wandering.shop
    Oct 22, 2026, 8:57 AM

    @afilina I spent 15 years doing pro web development on PHP. Wasted time I won't get back working around its quirks because it was the only game in town.

    I lost a WordPress blog and months of work to security bugs that PHP indirectly enabled.

    PHP was looking so much better as of version 7. I let myself hope that maybe things had changed. That it could be trusted for small projects again. Now this.

    And you're berating me for (checks notes) feeling betrayed.

    How about no.

    💬 1🔄 1⭐ 2
  • Till Kleislikleisli@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 9:16 AM

    @felix really? You feel betrayed because there was a security bug in a free software that got fixed quickly?
    We could also argue if wordpress is pro web development, that framework layer comes with its own bunch of problems. I also work with PHP for 20 years now, and I don't remember any other bug that lead to websites shutting down until it was patched. @afilina

    💬 1🔄 1⭐ 5
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 2
  • Ondrej ZizkaOndrejZizka@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 10:01 AM

    @kleisli @felix @afilina I do remember such bugs, and one of them was the reason I switched to another ecosystem. Going around 30 webs to change the usage of a core function after a MICRO release changed the semantics is not something I want to go through with any stack.

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 1
  • Ondrej ZizkaOndrejZizka@mastodon.social
    Oct 22, 2026, 10:23 AM

    @kleisli @felix @afilina Oh and by the way... That's no disrespect or hostility.

    I am grateful to PHP for allowing me learning server-side web dev when my only other option was MS IIS with JScript (sic) and it's bindings to "OLE" objects for anything meaningful (mail, db ...) and Java was still the terrible EJB 2.0. And the rest was either Perl or C / C++ through CGI. With no frameworks existing. So yeah it had it's role, but web dev evolved, so did frameworks, but the core PHP did not.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Ondřej ŽižkaOndrejZizka@witter.cz
    Oct 22, 2026, 9:11 AM

    @afilina If it was the first time... but PHP has been a bad technology since the inception. Severe design flaws, bad language desing, performance issues, memory leaks, incompatible changes across MICRO versions... it is really bad. Being Open Source doesn't change that - many technologies are too, and yet they are of much higher standards.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • George Bgbargoud@masto.nyc
    Oct 22, 2026, 10:20 AM

    @afilina

    Is facebook still written in PHP or did they rewrite it?

    With all of the billions Meta has been spending on really stupid ideas (metaverse, muse) they could probably fund a decade of the PHP foundation's budget every year as a rounding error

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Lou.gkrnours@mastodon.gamedev.place
    Oct 22, 2026, 10:24 AM

    @afilina youtube.com/watch?v=80ysU2Xl4Zk
    That presentation of PHP changed my mind on the language. Before, I focused on how it's inconsistent and its design encourage to go spaghetti with presentation and logic all mixed together. (I learned of django's router/function/template and I'm not going back).

    But watching that presebtation, I understood how much effort PHP put in being friendly to new-comer. When I started, I opened wamp and boom, I had a PHP dev environment. Two click and done.

    PHP is nice.

    💬 1🔄 3⭐ 1
  • ratfactorratfactor@mastodon.art
    Oct 23, 2026, 7:53 PM

    @gkrnours @afilina Yes!!! Rasmus's talks are excellent. PHP was *so much* nicer to work with (especially to set up) than the alternatives in the early 2000s... and I still haven't found anything really comparable. It's a wonderful tool and I'm grateful we have it.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • JoanBCatWomanmuminitaly@mastodon.scot
    Oct 22, 2026, 11:21 AM

    @afilina I looked and CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 went public 2 days ago and patches supplied yesterday. Government, banks, health services etc should have procedures in place to patch, test and make live as soon as the patches come out. I suspect most of them don't..

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • EdTheDevEdTheDev@infosec.exchange
    Oct 22, 2026, 2:15 PM

    @afilina Oof. I've seen plenty of humor to cope by admins, but I am thankful I haven't seen anything particularly mean spirited.

    And I've seen lots of hug-ops salutes between those fixing the issues.

    All of the angry jokes I have seen in Cybersecurity this week involve using the number 4 as a private key.

    #hugops #php

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 2
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Alan Buxeyalanbuxey@freeradical.zone
    Oct 22, 2026, 7:55 PM

    @afilina PHP this week - some other thing next week. Those not affected by this will have something to chew over soon enough.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • LastOfThemlastofthem@mastodon-belgium.be
    Oct 22, 2026, 8:40 PM

    @afilina Same, although I have seen similar snarkiness-from-the-sidelines before. Not the Fediverse's best side, and cause for introspection.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Johannes Brakensieklazarus@fosstodon.org
    Oct 22, 2026, 9:37 PM

    @afilina @grimmy Hate always is stupid. In this case it‘s very special, because the PHP guys themselves found that hole with the help of AI. What do haters want to say? „Don‘t check and improve your software before others find 0days?“

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0