Irrelevant how? I doubt BlueHost, HostGator, Dreamhost, etc, and on and on will have implemented HHVM as their core PHP offering by then. Most web hosts still have PHP 5.3 installed, and even the PHP 5.4 I've used on Media Temple's servers is out of date.
But at the rate PHP's release cycle has accelerated (remember that 5.3 dates from 2009...) it's entirely likely that the trend will continue. And more hosts are offering up-to-date PHP versions as an option.
In 2 years, HHVM will perform so much faster than PHP 6 and Hack will offer so many added benefits that even the shared hosting guys will switch to it as it will make them serve more sites with the same hardware plus developers will push to have Hack in place anyway.
That's not how it normally works with those kinds of re-implementations.
Heck, Python 3 hasn't even replaced Python 2 -- and people will dump PHP for Hack? A language which doesn't even have a community at the moment, it's 99% Facebook people.
Python 3 is a different story! As you mention below outliers, let's not use them, please! GNU/Linux OS does not depend on PHP like it depends on Python.
For what it's worth, I agree with you. Don't know why the downvotes are coming - it's very clear to see that FB is going to be better for PHP than Zend.
I'm not sure why you guys ganged up to downvote on something obvious - PHP is loosing grounds to HHVM already. I'm considering it for all my PHP projects already - it's easy to install and most PHP frameworks are well-supported already (http://hhvm.com/frameworks/). I can imagine HHVM having integration within Nginx a la HttpLuaModule, which uses LuaJIT and would eliminate going the FastCGI route.
>I'm not sure why you guys ganged up to downvote on something obvious - PHP is loosing grounds to HHVM already.
Perhaps because some on HN are computer scientists, so to convince them it takes actual numbers and not some anecdotal evidence of what you personally use.
Judging from all available data sources, you are an outlier.
HHVM doesn't have that large a community (mostly FB people), is not installed in the overwhelming majority of hosts, still has compatibility issues, has few posts about it, there are very few mentions of companies using it, and, for what it is, has been largerly ignored in the whole PHP community (forums, etc).
>Perhaps because some on HN are computer scientists, so to convince them it takes actual numbers and not some anecdotal evidence of what you personally use.
And then goes on to say:
>HHVM doesn't have that large a community (mostly FB people), is not installed in the overwhelming majority of hosts, still has compatibility issues, has few posts about it, there are very few mentions of companies using it, and, for what it is, has been largerly ignored in the whole PHP community (forums, etc).
The difference is that I gave objective and easily checkable statements.
References? I referred to specific items (hosts supporting it: just check the top 10 shared hosting providers), mentions of companies using it (how many have you seen on HN?), compatibility issues (those are documented on the project page), etc.
All of those are references to data sources you can actually check.
I'm not going to crunch the numbers for you, but unlike the parent, you don't have to take my word for it.
Pointing to the data themselves is actually more scientific than the "references to data", if by that you mean some websites and news sources feeding you with ready made data points ("20% of developers are thinking of adopting HHVM, we know, we asked 100 of our pals").
I have nearly 30 years of professional experience and my intuition is pretty reliable. If HHVM wasn't what runs the largest PHP app in the world, things would have been much different. Hack brings many language people that Zend for one reason or another didn't not deliver all these years.
>I have nearly 30 years of professional experience and my intuition is pretty reliable
Any other examples of it panning correctly?
In any case, let's check back in 2 years. I doubt Hack/HHVM will have more than 20% adoption even then. Criteria:
Number of hosting providers supporting it.
Number of posts on HN from startups using it.
Number of relevant community (forum and blog posts, contributors etc)
Number of new projects written for it (GitHub)
Number of new books appearing for it.
Rank in the Tiobe programming language index.
Blue whale is the largest mammal on the planet, but that doesn't mean eating nothing but krill is a good idea for every mammal. Everybody has different needs and different capabilities, so "Facebook does it" and "everybody does it" are quite different.
While technically your statement is true - HHVM had zero ground some time ago and standard PHP had 100% ground, and now HHVM has some ground (which is witnessed by your use of it) so PHP has less than 100% - the substance of it - implying that HHVM is somehow fast on its way to replace PHP - does not match observed reality. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and so far none was provided. It is great to see this project gaining acceptance, but let's not get ahead of the facts and claim something that does not exist yet.
Nobody cares about today; everybody cares about tomorrow. If you've closely monitored the developments around HHVM and applied knowledge from past experience with successfully managed projects, you'd have zero doubt that HHVM has all components of being widely successful. It will never reach 100%, but for larger projects, it will be preferred just like many go thru the trouble of implementing Nginx + PHP-FPM vs stock Apache + mod_php.
a) it's run developed by a company whose policy is "move fast and break things". I have seen the result of this mantra first hand in their fucking terrible Facebook "api" where something breaks every time anyone anywhere in the world farts.
b) the number and nature of incompatibilities are too vast.
c) their intention is pretty clear with "hack" - they want a php-like language but not php. That's fine they can do that but I won't use it.
The mantra is changing (as of this f8). There's nothing wrong with evolving PHP or any language. Being stalled for so long gave other languages a chance to steal from its pie, but there are signs (like with phpng) that things are changing. Java was stubborn enough not to evolve for so long, but even they learned already. Everybody is doing rapid release cycles now and that's not a bad thing. Things that don't evolve die - at least this is the perception. And developers today have a different mindset compared to 10-20 years ago.
Just have to chime in here. As someone who works with the Facebook API on a nearly daily basis, it has come a LONG way in the past year or so. When I first started with it 3-4 years ago it was an absolute nightmare. It is actually quite consistent now and they are doing a much better job of documenting / addressing bugs.
When HHVM & Hack can easily replace the 10 years of legacy php/html/js soup code and bastardized ZF1 implementations without downtime or extensive developer resources I'll believe it. Unfortunately most non-technical companies only care about performance when it's obviously costing them money (i.e., the servers are crashing.)
