Listening to Zeihan is a bit of a guilty pleasure. The guys talks about very serious topics with the affection and language of a contender in a reality dating show. I get how casually listening to him, you may get the impression of a balanced thoughtful opinion, but Zeihan is anything but that.
Ever wondered about the array_fill function? It can be baffling. Try filling an array with a negative index:
array_fill(-5, 4, ‘test’);
Many languages would throw an error, but PHP? It’s perfectly fine with this and you get an array starting at index -5. It’s like PHP is the Wild West of array indexing!
Absolutely, many languages do allow negative indices. The intriguing part about PHP, though, is that its ‘arrays’ are actually ordered maps (or hash tables) under the hood. This structure allows for a broader range of keys, like our negative integers or even strings. It’s a unique design choice that sets PHP apart and allows for some really interesting usage patterns. Not your everyday array, right?
I’ve been working with PHP for two years now (not by choice) but I still sometimes forget the weird behaviours these not-arrays cause. Recently I was pushing/popping entries in a queue and it fucked the indexing. I had programmed it like I would any other sane language and it wasn’t until I was stepping through the bug I realised I had forgotten about this.
I hate PHP for so many more reasons. It baffles me why anyone would think it was a good idea to design it this way. Thankfully my current job involves actively burning it down and preparing for its replacement.
I had been using Samsung for the longest time before my current device and lemme tell ya, even with their flagships they pull this shit, I’m always having to go in and delete whatever shit they download, like, no, I have no desire to play fucking ROYAL MATCH please stop asking me
I say that php breaks math entirely, and is therefore bad. “” == null returns true null == [] returns true “” == [] returns false.
In more recent versions it gets worse, because it has 0 == “any text” return true, “any text” == true return true, and 1 == true return true So indirectly 1 = 0, and now math is more directly broken.
If you’re trying to directly compare different variable types in any language without strong typing, you’re going to have edge-case results which you might not expect.
My “coding like a moron” message still stands. PHP isn’t a strongly typed language and it doesn’t tell you off for trying stupid stuff like comparing a string with an int. Nor do other languages like JavaScript.
I just tested these out out of curiosity.
0==“text” returns false in PHP 8.2 as I’d expect.
The others make sense in the way that php juggles between types. An empty variable can type-juggle to null, but an array can’t be directly compared with a string.
(Although you wouldn’t really want to compare an array with a string, PHP just treats an array as greater than other variables. So weirdly, ([] > “”) == true.)
But if you code like a moron the code should still behave as expected. People who code like this deserve a special place in hell, next to languages that behave like that.
How about “php enables me to code like a moron”, or even better, "php breaks common conventions and forces me to think about every little detail and special edge case, slowing me down if I don’t want to accidentally ‘code like a moron’ "
Nested ternary operators emerge because of the lack of if/switch expressions (which is C fault), so they are “useful” (they shouldn’t be). However, PHP is the only language that treats it as left associative. This has 2 problems:
You are forced to use parenthesis. Some (insane) people might do: (cond1) ? “A” : (cond2) ? “B” : “C” And it makes sense. Its ugly af, but it makes sense. But PHP now forces you to use more parethesis. It’s making you work more.
It breaks convention. If you come from any other language and use ternary operators, you will get unexpected results. After hours of banging your head against the wall, you realize the problem. And now you have to learn a new edge case in the language, and what to do to actually use the language.
“But you shouldn’t use ternary operators anyway! Use if/switch/polymorphic dispatch/goto/anything else”
True, but still, the feature is there, and its bad. The fact that there are other alternatives doesn’t make the PHP ternary operator worse than other languages’ ternary operator.
PHP works against you. That’s the problem. The ternary operator is not a good example, since there are alternatives. But look at something so simple, so mundane like strpos.
If strpos doesn’t find returns false. Every other language returns -1. And if you then use this value elsewhere, PHP will cast it to 0 for you. Boom, your program is broken, and you have to stare at the screen for hours, looking for the error.
“BuT yOU sHoUlD AlwAyS cHEcK tHe rETurN eRRor!”
And even if that’s true, if we all must check the return value, does PHP force you to do so? Like checked exceptions in Java? Or all the Option & Result in Rust? throws, throws, throws… unwrap, unwrap, unwrap… (Many) people hate those features
Show us on this doll where php hurt you. Php is great, especially in the later versions. I rarely need to know the position of a substring in a string, most of the time str_starts_with(), str_ends_with() and str_contains() is what I really need.
Verizon does this all the time with my family members no matter who the manufacturer is. If you get the phone from a Verizon store instead of carrier-unlocked they pull this crap all the time.
I remember on some of my older phones Verizon would not only install apps I didn’t want, but they’d flag them as system apps so they couldn’t be disabled.
That’s like saying Samsung shouldn’t allow you to install any apps. If Verizon bought the phone they can put whatever they want on it before they sell it to you. And then when you buy it, you delete or put whatever you want on it.
This happens on unlocked phones too. My Galaxy S21 has apps installed on it whenever I have a different provider (Trafcone, AT&T, etc.). It’s not just when it’s a phone resold from the provider.
Under What to expect on this support page, it says:
The phone branding, network configuration, carrier features, and system apps will be different based on the SIM card you insert or the carrier linked to the eSIM.
The new carrier’s settings menus will be applied.
The previous carrier’s apps will be disabled.
The correct approach from a UX perspective would have been to display an out-of-box experience wizard that gives the user an option to either use the recommended defaults, or customize what gets installed.
Unfortunately, many manufacturers don’t do that, and just install the apps unconditionally and with system-level permissions. And even if they did, it’s likely that many of the carrier apps will either have a manifest value that requires them to be installed, be unlabeled (e.g. com.example.carrier.msm.mdm.MDM), or misleadingly named to appear essential (e.g. “Mobile Services Manager”).
Anecdotally, I can confirm otherwise. I bought an unlocked Galaxy phone directly from Samsung, and putting in a SIM card provisioned it for my cell provider and installed their apps.
Thankfully, I’m not on a provider that pushes adware.
It’s possible that Google doesn’t, although that would be weird since the ability to push apps is probably standardized and baked into the stock Android OS source code.
Or maybe you just used MVNOs that don’t purposefully install anything that isn’t strictly necessary.
Android OS developers or software devs working for cell providers would probably know the answer, though.
No, it’s nothing like that at all. Apple doesn’t let carriers install bloat onto their phones. I’m pretty sure Pixels don’t get this sort of bloat. But Samsung clearly does.
Switched to fairphone and could root it without installing twrp, there was only one extra app and I could just disable the google apps and switch to foss ones.
Well, I have to give the OP credit for outrageous audacity.
Coming to the main community on the dedicated Star Trek instance to argue that users should subscribe elsewhere is inherently a criticism. It says a lot about the tolerance of the mods and admins here that it’s been left to stand.
I myself appreciate a well moderated community because I believe it enables more discussion not less.
The heavy debt load was caused by his purchase… He paid $26 bn, a couple other investors (including a Saudi prince) together paid $5 bn, the remaining $13 bn is a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk’s behalf.
The purchase was always a financial death sentence. Either Twitter steps into line and becomes the propaganda tool he and his old friend Peter Thiel want, then it can have some extra investment, or Twitter dies.
lemmy.world
Active