Friday, January 11, 2008
I think I've turned into a programming curmudgeon
I hate dynamically typed languages.
Perl, PHP, Python, Lua, the whole lot.
Why?
Because programmers who program in such languages are muddleheaded thinkers who hate to declare variable types because they're too lazy to think and find it fun to “organically grow” their code bases.
It doesn't help that PHP (the current focus for my rage right now) is the ultimate in “scripting languages du jour,” where even minor releases are incompatible with each other.
I'm installing a PHP app (what that particular package is doesn't matter)
but it's having problems connecting to the database (PostgreSQL in this case, and yes, it's
one of the few PHP apps that actually acknowledge the existance of a database
other than MySQL). So, I log into phpPgAdmin to make sure
the appropriate PostgreSQL user can access the appropriate PstgreSQL
database, only what do I get?
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/db/postgres/privileges.php on line 187
Alright … what's the line in question?
foreach ($privileges as $v) {
...
}
$privileges isn't mistyped (a common problem in a langauge
where you don't have to declare your variables). I check some
documentation and yes, that's the correct syntax, but comments from the
peanut gallery are going on and on about foreach breaking on
copies of data or something; stuff that isn't reassuring.
So I rewrite the code (remember now, I'm trying to install
SomeRandomPHPApp, I am not trying to debug
phpPgAdmin):
reset($privileges); // XXX spc
while(list(,$v) = each($privileges)) { // XXX spc
//foreach ($privileges as $v) { // XXX spc
...
}
And try my call again reloading the page:
Warning: reset() [function.reset]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /var/www/html/db/postgres/privileges.php on line 187
Warning: Variable passed to each() is not an array or object in /var/www/html/db/postgres/privileges.php on line 188
Okay, what exactly do I have? $privileges is
obviously not an array. Okay, more debugging (“I'm not even supposed
to be here today!”).
$privileges = $data->getPrivileges($object, $_REQUEST['subject']); echo "TYEP: " . gettype($privileges) . " : $privileges"; // XXX spc
And what do I get?
TYEP: integer
Warning: reset() [function.reset]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /var/www/html/db/postgres/privileges.php on line 188
Warning: Variable passed to each() is not an array or object in /var/www/html/db/postgres/privileges.php on line 189
Oh lovely. getPrivileges() is now returning an
integer, and the sizeof() function of PHP is returning a value
larger than 0 (since the next thing done right after calling
getPrivileges() is a call to sizeof() to see if
getPrivileges() returned anything of any appreciable size)
because an integer has a size, don't you know?
Oh, so what's the actual value of $privileges?
-3
Probably some internal error result deep from the bowels of PHP.
And not an array, like the programmer who originally wrote this crap expected.
Had there been some real typechecking going on I wouldn't be subjected to this type of error and the programmer would have been forced to think about the situation.
Hmm … actually, now that I'm reading up on sizeof(),
I think the blame for this is defintely with the crack-addled
developers of PHP. sizeof() is an alias for
count(), which in part, reads:
Returns the number of elements in
var, which is typically an array, since anything else will have one element.
“Typically.” Oh, I love that bit.
Okay, so if sizeof() (aka
count()) will return a count of 1 for non-arrays and not signal
any type of error because you “typically” use this on arrays, then why does
foreach() barf on a non-array? Couldn't it just loop once? If
sizeof() will treat a non-array as an array of one, why can't
foreach()?
I mean, isn't that the purpose of a dynamically typed language? To act reasonably in any given situation? To not care if something is an array, list, vector, scalar, hashtable, or carrier pidgeon?
Hmmm … on second thought, that still doesn't absolve the
programmer of phpPgAdmin—since there still is the issue of
getPrivileges() returning an integer instead of an array of
arrays (at least, that's what the code seems to be expecting).
And that still leaves my original problem currently unsolved.
