Unlike more “sciencey” languages like C, Java or Welsh, PHP was not designed by a number of super-intelligent academic computer scientists. Instead, it was created by a bored Finnish-American computer science student so he could do a fancy Guestbook page on his “homepage”.

Of course, you’d think that the smart, computer guys would be the best at designing a language. They’ve spent all of their time learning through experiences and using words at each other to design a language that can create well-structured, clean code.

But who has the time to think like a super-intelligent academic computer scientists? I’ll tell you who – other super-intelligent academic computer scientists and that’s it. Everyone else wants to make the pretty colours come on the screen as soon as possible so they can get home for their dinner. Why define an abstract class when you can use the phpfs_print_under_f(true) function?

Who cares about syntax checking and security? Did the Pharoahs think about security when they built the pyramids? No they did not. Did Superman think about consistent variable order or type checking when he built the Empire State Building? No, he did not. He just read a couple of books, dug up some rocks and started building.

These are all development techniques designed to slow down the lazy developer, who must get as much done with minimal effort as possible.

Yeah, sure, in the long term you’ll want to make sure your code is well-written, logical and not in violation of every best-practice standard, but by that time you’ll be retired on your yacht or become head of IT and it’ll be someone else’s problem.

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