F = T ∇ Sτ

A little note from my debugging experience. Split function works differently and I would say unexpectedly for empty string in different programming languages, and it can cause difficult to find bugs (especially if you use a lot of languages simultaneously). I've created a table with the popular programming languages: Language Split without parameters Split with parameter Python ''.split()=[] ''.split(',')=[''] Ruby ''.split()=[] ''.split(',')=[] JavaScript ''.split()=[''] ''.split(',')=[''] PHP N/A explode(',', '')=array(0=>'') Java N/A "".split(",")={""} C# "".Split()={""} "".Split(',')={""} As you can see sometimes it returns empty array, but sometimes an array with the one empty element. So please be careful with the split operation :)

I've found a good wiki-article about programming languages faults and want to share a link:  http://wiki.theory.org/YourLanguageSucks . The "winner" is PHP as usual, but Python is also noticed (as well as Ruby :) ). I agree with almost everything there, but in my own eyes Python is still the best choice for programming. Nevertheless, I also want to point out some other recent links related to PHP (I really shouldn't but just can't help doing it): PHP Sucks PHP Must Die What are the horrors of PHP? What factors during the development of PHP contributed to it being such a poorly designed language? And a quote from the interview with Rasmus Lerdorf  (the creator of PHP): I don't know how to stop it, there was never any intent to write a programming language [...] I have absolutely no idea how to write a programming language, I just kept adding the next logical step on the way.

There is a common mistake about "If everybody use it, so I also have to use it - millions of people can't be wrong". Apparently, they can, and huge codebase, support and knowledge mean nothing, otherwise we would still use Fortran, Cobol, Basic and other almost died monsters. Also there is an another common mistake about "If big corporation use it, I also have to use it". It's very doubtful, almost always decision are made in hurry and/or by wrong people and/or without serious consideration. And after some period of time, it's difficult to nullify previous decision because it would require huge efforts. Good example - Facebook. Let me quote the presentation  HipHop for PHP Tech Tasting : PHP is problematic for Facebook: High CPU usage High memory usage Reuse of PHP logic in other systems Extensions are hard to write for most PHP developers But huge codebase, strange affection towards PHP (in what universe "loose typing and universal ar...

UPDATE (07/18/17): The original article was written in 2011 and pretty much outdated, I've updated the numbers and conclusions. I've got a question about which programming language is preferable for the website development for embedded systems (with limited resources). Here is my small investigation in a table form. Please note that the question was about only these 3 programming languages - there are better candidates for the embedded systems now (for example, Rust). The Memory and Performance overhead numbers are based on the n-body benchmark and calculated as relatives to "C gcc #4" measurements. Python 3 Node.js PHP Memory Overhead x7.62 x29.04 x8.53 Type System Strong Typing Weak Typing Weak Typing Vulnerabilities 220 1411 5626 Performance Overhead x78.31 x2.82 x30.12 Documentation Excellent Excellent Average C Bindings Excellent Average Poor Code Readability With PEP8 it can be almost perfect ESLint enforces very good style PEAR Coding Stan...