There is no war at all

> Ironically certain things from Ruby On Rails were copied from PHP.
Why from PHP? There is a lot of other templating systems. Look around, there is really a lot of them.

> Maybe I missed the point but I assumed that Ruby On Rails imposes a certain methodology as the only way to do it right and be productive.
Probably, you missed the point. If you don't need Rails for a project, you can do it with Sinatra or something else. Also, Rails doesn't tie you to the methodology. You can do TDD or not, you can do short iterations or not, you can do prototypes or not. So the methodology is the question of your choice.

Rails ties you to MVC and AR, and sometimes these patterns are not what you need. Well, Yii does the same.

Next, about the win in a war. PHP has beaten up Ruby, right? Here is a quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_App_Engine):
> Currently, the supported programming languages are Python, Java, Go (and, by extension, other JVM languages such as Groovy, JRuby, Scala, Clojure and Jython via a special version of Quercus), and PHP, In that Go and PHP are in experimental status.
So, Grails apps are here, and PHP apps are in experimental status? Congrats.

Very sad to see the engineer talking about the war in his field of competency.

PHP allows you to embed code in HTML templates since its very first version in 1994. It is a built-in feature, not a library that does that unlike other languages.

As for Rails methodology, the point there is that many people that thought that Rails made them productive because it defines a way to do it right, it is because before using Rails they did not have a productive method to develop in PHP, Java, whatever.

You can be productive using a methodology in any language and you do not need a framework.

So it was not really something about Rails but the prior lack of training of those developers.

As for language wars, I suspect you did not read the whole article. As I said PHP developers in general are not at war with anybody. The war is only in the minds of PHP haters that keep campaigning against PHP as if that is going to make their favorite language become more popular.

The article was not relating PHP popularity with Google App Engine adoption. The vast majority of the PHP developers is not going to use it. The part that related to the PHP popularity is the statement of the Google manager about the 75% market share of PHP to justify embracing the PHP market now.

> PHP allows you to embed code in HTML templates since its very first version in 1994. It is a built-in feature, not a library that does that unlike other languages.

Actually, PHP in its first version was a templater. :) I can't say the quote below is the code of a program.
===
<!--include /text/header.html-->

<!--getenv HTTP_USER_AGENT-->
<!--ifsubstr $exec_result Mozilla-->
Hey, you are using Netscape!<p>
<!--endif-->

<!--sql database select * from table where user='$username'-->
<!--ifless $numentries 1-->
Sorry, that record does not exist<p>
<!--endif exit-->
Welcome <!--$user-->!<p>
You have <!--$index:0--> credits left in your account.<p>

<!--include /text/footer.html-->
===
So, PHP is a templater from the very beginning, it was designed for this purpose; but this is not the reason to tell something like "ASP/ERB/JSP stole this feature from PHP".

> it is because before using Rails they did not have a productive method to develop in PHP, Java, whatever.
Well, what technologies did you try? Actually, PHP is much easier to start. At least in comparison with Perl in 1998 (when I first got acknowledged with PHP) and with Rails now.
Rails can impress a newcomer in two ways. The first is to show a ton of codegenerators ("oh, this thing will do everything instead of me!")
Let's call this impression the neophyte's delight.
The second is to let him understand how many solutions are planted in this garden. Actually, it is really hard to bypass all this hype about codegeneration and fake productivity and to find the good books on the topic.

I think, we're not speaking about neophytes. If so, then let me argue that any person who is more knowledgeable than a regular neophyte won't hate anything, especially in public.

;)

> As for language wars, I suspect you did not read the whole article. As I said PHP developers in general are not at war with anybody. The war is only in the minds of PHP haters that keep campaigning against PHP as if that is going to make their favorite language become more popular.

I read it. I am not speaking with some abstract PHP developers, I am speaking with you. But I didn't see the real hate even in the discussions you're referring to; so I think you want to see the hate somewhere to have a base to blame haters in the blog post. It is important for a publicist to escalate a conflict or even to produce it. :)

For me, PHP is not just a way to do the job. It suits the big segment of the market, and I don't see the reason to hate such a good thing. Even if it is designed badly. Well, the most of the mass products are like that. :) Also, very often PHP is aiming to the segment which will never be occupied by Java, Ruby, Python and so on just because these languages/sums of technologies are way too big and heavy. Can you imagine Java applications on a mass hosting? I can't.

So, let's note: PHP is not just a way to do the job but /very often it is the only way to do the job and fit the budget/. Also, PHP is much faster for this purpose than, say, Ruby on its Rails. :)

PHP is a template engine until today, only the syntax of the commands evolved.

The point of reminding that ERB borrowed the template engined ideas from PHP is just to provide evidence that Ruby On Rails people are inconsistent. They criticize PHP but then they use PHP features. So PHP is not that bad as they claim.

The other inconsistency is that mixing code and HTML is a bad practice. If you want to let a designer define the templates, he needs to do the template programming as well.

There are template formats that just have marks in them, no programming. That is a better solution to split tasks between programmers and web designers.

This is just to remind that Ruby On Rails people also defend ugly programming after all.

Well, notice that the criticism came from Ruby On Rails people. We all know that PHP is easier. They are the ones that preached against PHP since they begun try to attract more developers. They attacked explicitly PHP and Java.

The discussions in Quora is just anti-PHP propaganda disguised of questions. Those are just a few of many examples of that tactic. It's silly and it did not work.

There are more explicit examples of PHP hatred. The example of Jeff Atwood is just one of them. He never gets tired of trolling PHP in Twitter. That is just to mention one well known and influential developer.

I do not care what PHP haters say, but there were many PHP developers believed that PHP was really dying and the best developers do not use PHP, and all sorts of similar lies.

From the reactions that I saw to this article in Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, many of those PHP developer were relieved that it was not true and PHP is more alive than ever.

:)
"Part of what makes a good developer is the ability to choose the tools that work best".