Why I stopped creating PHP projects with Wappler and why you probably should too

Coffee Lounge
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I think the main thing here and I agree with Jon is that with using one platform it will allow the Wappler team to iterate and inter grate so much faster (I was really surprised to see support for asp to be honest!). At the moment they essentially have to test and make most features for 3 languages.

Now imagine that is taking them 3 times as long (I don’t imagine it does because I’m sure there is efficiency gains from integrating a feature in one language already) then they would be able to create and add features three times as fast. At the rate they already produce features that could see a completely different powerful platform than if they still had to maintain support for those three languages.

Now the elephant in the room as Anthony has pointed out though is if you have made a complex application in php / asp your in a predicament if support is dropped. I think doing what JonL suggested is a great idea. Just Security releases for x amount of years. This would allow a feature freeze so no extra work needs to go into implementing features into the other languages (which I get a sense is kind of already happening to some degree as some things are just not possible / easy to do in php/asp). However I do think as well a conversion process would be really appreciated that would aid in converting your php / asp app into Node.

I am biased on this though as I haven’t made anything yet so I don’t have the struggle or pain of having an existing application that I have been making for many hours / months that is now being questioned as to how long it will be supported.

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Just let you all know, we don’t have any plans to drop PHP anytime soon. PHP is not really slowing us down.

Because of the universal UI that we have in Wappler, it is easy to support multiple server languages.

But of course some specific features like sockets and other features will be NodeJS only.

What we will even want to support in the future is the Go language and maybe ASP.NET Core

Those are working pretty much like NodeJS, running directly as web application server, so possibilities are pretty much the same.

Go servers are powerful when you need a lot of speed with compilation and multiple cores processing, so it has its own unique advantages.

What we will be dropping soon is Classic ASP. This is really a roadblock for us.

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People can now relax their sphincters :joy:

At some point of the thread people started to think I suggested to drop support for PHP.

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I think its amazing that you can support so many languages to be honest :open_mouth:

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True. It’s amazing, but also let’s not foul ourselves. As many languages as they are able to maintain they already admitted that ASP Classic has become a liability.

But they have to stand by the product. They are developers but first they are a business. And they need to keep a healthy one so that they can grow and we can still enjoy this fantastic tool. They need and want to support PHP because it’s integral to their business bottomline and the development/support overhead is small as they mentioned. But that’s Wappler as a business speaking.

But they are also developers and I am pretty confident that if they could automagically convert you and your apps to node they would do it without hesitation. As developers their passion for php is going to wear out if it’s not already. But they have to balance the business needs with their developing wants.

The same problem they have today with ASP Classic they will have with PHP in a few years time. And after that they will have it with nodejs. It’s how this world works.

Therefore I still stand by my words. If you start a new project do it with nodejs. You are doing yourself, the product and the community a big favour.

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The core of Wappler ‘developers’ are Dreamweaver - DMXzone tools users back from 2005 or so. We are those who supported the DMX-zone team for many, many years and we still do and will keep on doing. We are those who supported the famous HTML5-bindings (the let’s say father of Server Connect and AppConnect back in 2010 I think). We are those who believed in the next step that DMX-team wanted to make (to set aside Dreamweaver) and try to look forward. We are those who were telling the DMX-team that we mostly use Dreamweaver because of their tools and they should make the next step. We are those who believed in their idea and supported their crowdfunding campaign so they could get started (I think I am the only one globally of ‘The Great Supporter’ level). So reading somewhere between the posts that we, the solid base of the DMX-team, are holding Wappler back is at least an impiety. Of course, Wappler should look at the future. This is why it was created after all. To break boundaries. This is why we supported it in the first place and this is what brought all of us here with this magnificent software being a reality. But just even the thought that the DMX-team would just forget where they started from, who is supporting them for about 15+ years, just to follow the trends… well this won’t be the DMX-zone team spirit anymore. I totally disagree that PHP should be abandoned not because of any tech reason or trend, but because the core of Wappler’s developers comes from PHP and they are using it for PHP/ASP projects. Even if I won’t use PHP anymore I will respect, those who will keep on doing it, and support them because they made Wappler possible and not any tech-trend. This does not mean to stop looking forward. Instead of insisting to cut the connections with their roots, I would suggest that the team could even grow. If the DMX-team thinks that the best for the Wappler project to grow, is to grow their team also (with the analogous price raise if needed), I know that the core base of the Wappler project will be there and support the team. The Wappler project success is not just a success of three hard-working guys, but the result of many many years of walking together with them through the good and the bad times. We are here to make the community grow and to help other people understand what a great software Wappler is. We will keep on pushing forward but never forget all of those who brought us here today.

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@JonL

What have you been up to Jon!

:smiley:

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Lets face it @t11 Nikolaos, if any platform has to be dropped, classic ASP is well past it’s best, depreciated in 2010 and close to end of support

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Hello, @Hyperbytes. Yeah, I am mostly referring to PHP since it is the language that most of us are using for the projects and even if we won’t use it in the future, we have many projects based on it.

Thank you

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@t11 the reality is that new users don’t care about DMX and Dreamweaver times. Why would we? I learnt about DMX because I found Wappler. Not the other way around.

Your speech reminded me of:

But let’s not get overly dramatic here.

Although it’s nice to learn a bit of the history of the team and the product we don’t subscribe to it based on that.

We subscribe to it due to a mix of features, support and roadmap.

It’s clear they are going to keep supporting PHP. I said I just wished they didn’t have to. But if they followed my wishes that would hurt their bottomline big time.

And that is because a lot of you guys continue to choose PHP for new projects and that’s a mistake that will come back to bite you at some point.

All in all, next project, choose nodejs. You are doing yourself and the team a favour.

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Please don’t make me lessons of why you subscribed. I am doing it since 2005 or so…Above any technology is manners and, the way you ridicule my answer (and all loyal customers to an extend) is very annoying (I am surprised by some likes you get…). I am only answering in order to place my previous answer on the right track since the way you make fun of it totally misleads the readers.

Here is (more or less) why I care, and I think most of the loyal customers care about PHP support:
Many to not say the most of us, have projects based on DMX and Wappler from 2005-2006 or so, and, for us, the loyal customers is vital to know that the team will continue to support PHP because we have clients that are using it for many many years on large projects. So it is not a matter of trend or fun. It is a matter of consistency to our clients. Making fun of it, right and there in the community, if the support on PHP will keep on or not, is truly unprofessional and it does not hurt the bottom line of DMX/Wappler clients, it hurts the image of this company overall.

Anyway, I am dropping out of this thread and I wish I could hide my overall disappointment about the level of communication but I can’t.

Please don’t answer me personally again. Respect me as I respect you.

Thank you

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Yeah. Public forums don’t work like that I am afraid. If you don’t want a reply in a conversation you shouldn’t participate. But I encourage your participation as your opinion is important and valid.

And about that. I respect your opinion. I just don’t agree with it.

However that speech was too much for me to not giggle a bit. You didn’t need to rally up people as if you were going into a war with newer tech. As that is not the case. I was just giving my opinion about why I don’t use php and you shouldn’t either. You can clearly ignore my advice and do whatever the hell you want. But if you participate in my thread expect memes and laughs.

Repeating that you are a loyal customer(since 2005 no less!) doesn’t make you right automatically as you can imagine. The amount of likes I get does not make me right either. They are both just stupid numbers. Only facts are important.

PHP is getting old and obsolete. Is not a matter of if but when. It a has a few years left of course but it’s not going to be there forever as you can imagine. Neither will nodejs in 20 years time. I am not invested in any tech. I just know when to drop it so it doesn’t cause me technical debt.

Peace and love!

And at my signal unleash hell!

image

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In the first week of February 2021 all the biggies were “fooled/corrupted” by the stunt that later enabled this “hack of the official Git server of the PHP programming language” (that) “pushed unauthorized updates to insert a secret backdoor into its source code.”

In February over 35 major companies’ internal systems were penetrated by a specific technique, including those of Microsoft, Apple, PayPal, Shopify, Netflix, Yelp, Tesla, and Uber, which achieved remote code execution.

Screenshot 2021-04-01 at 11.46.46
Screenshot 2021-04-01 at 11.46.461594×714 107 KB

THIS is the huge weakness that remains exploitable in today’s mix of packages which depend on other packages, with many key components & functionalities being relied on in possibly millions of applications.

The supply chain for Javascript based web technologies is every bit, if not more so, vulnerable to many hands stirring the code your apps depend on to function.

Today you must operate in trust that everybody is on the up & up ethically speaking. And then you commit to that route (so to speak) and trust that every line of code up and down the ladders of dependencies that you installed yesterday is not shorted out by some arcane change made by a 3rd/4th/5th level removed code alteration.

The phenomenal interdependencies of today’s web products, especially since front-end, back-end, UI separated from code approaches became Best Practices, makes for thousands of lines of code streaming by in even the “lightest” apps.

It’s made up for by broader bandwidths, higher data rates, ever-growing Javascript engines installed in browsers to gulp down and process communications between perhaps MULTIPLE SERVER connections to the open app.

As we all know.

Which makes all of the Javascript based libraries delicate creatures.
And since their arrival on Mother Internet I have never seen such a plethora of testing & performance & debugging tools whose complexity is another universe of knowledge and expertise.

I hope in a few years to see a more streamlined native driver/processing language between data server and app devices that incorporates different UI layouts & functionalities adjustable by both creator and even end-user preferences

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Been a few good articles on supply chain hacks since all the Solar Winds stuff came to light. Saying that the methodology is as old as the hills…

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Hey @JonL, as much as I can enjoy your banter and strength of feeling, I personally feel you have a tendency to cross the line into being rude and divisive at times which I really don’t think is the true you.

I know you’ve had to battle trolls on other forums, but I just don’t think we need that approach here with the Wappler family. It makes me personally feel pain at reading some of what you write and the effect it has on others!

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To end this
It’s not about right or wrong. You think of it like this. It is a matter of consistency to our clients. We support people for many years with certain technologies. DMX is our partner behind this. If they want to stop providing this support you understand that this is no fun and no right or wrong issue.

Yes being an old client does not make me right. I never said that. It makes me valuable, valid, and consistent, and worth listening to (like all of us). Btw I never said that you are wrong using another technology and never said I won’t use it. I just don’t like the quality of fun is being made in the community for dropping the PHP support.

Being in an open forum does not mean the absence of respect.

Yes, Peace and Love.

PS. really let’s stop this.

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I am very angry and disappointed about the little technical content of this post, it really shows that you do not know anything about programming.

ASP, PHP and Node are obscure technologies that are useless and only cause problems for our clients. The same as the Internet that not only hinders communication between people but also opens the door for them to hack into my refrigerator, tv and more importantly my future toilet brought from Japan.

So I only came here to say long live ABAP, BASIC and LOGO, yes LOGO the best language in the world. You @George and Wappler folks need to implement the turtle and a command console so that I can type: repeat 4 [FD 50 RT 90] and be happy in my nostalgia.
By de way happy April Fools Day everyone!.

03012b88ad79ff127509cf32c00b5167

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Yeah I think this post is the best for closing it.

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Amen

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