Random coding fact of the day

[kingandy]

One thing I love about php is the ability to go:

$result = mysql_query($query) or die();

The "or" syntax just means, "if this operation returns false, perform this other action" - used mostly for error reporting or whatever.  The "die" function stops processing the page (and, yes, there's usually some useful error message inside those brackets but for the purposes of this post that's not important).

I just really enjoy telling a page to commit seppuku if it fails in its duties.

Comments

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

A coding idiom inherited from perl. I've probably asked before, but do you grok perl?

[kingandy]

I've never touched it. Except in the sense that - doesn't the first P in PHP stand for perl?

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

No, its PHP Hypertext Processor

[samharber.livejournal.com]

?

PHP stands for PHP Hypertext Processor?

So what does the first PHP stand for?

[kingandy]

"Personal Home Page", according to Wikipedia.

Of course, really it's just because geeks think recursive acronyms are clever. like GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix".

I roll my eyes.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

Its recursive*.



*see recursive

[kingandy]

I have never been impressed by recursive acronyms.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

Its probably due to recursion being such popular computing algorithm.

[renniek.livejournal.com]

PHP always feels to me like a simplified version of Perl, optimised for Web development. The basic syntax is very similar.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

It certainly draws a lot from perl's heratige, including the pcre libraries.

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

I know very little about php (just that evil_nick is a big fan), but I just wanted to go "yay! yay! yay!" at your choice of music. *grins*

[kingandy]

Ah yes - courtesy of stsquad. Mildly entertaining, though not quite as harmonic as Da Vinci's Notebook ... but they do a very good job of apeing a number of very distinctive style.

[mj-uk.livejournal.com]

didnt perl have a kill function?