There are a ton of features in modern PHP which address a lot of the common criticisms brought against it. Doing a proper comparison with other languages (framework to framework, not framework to language) I think PHP measures up reasonably well.
But there is so much terrible, legacy code out there. The evolution, if it's happening is happening very slowly.
>The language seems to encourage poor practices like building query strings directly from remote input without the use of a true query builder.
I won't entirely disagree with you on this, because there is still a ton of that code out there, but PHP has had true 'query builders' for a while now, and the mysql_ functions are being deprecated anyway.
No, the buying drugs part is what's 'wrong,' if you consider breaking the law to be a bad thing.
But you're right to point out that, in sheer usage, Bitcoin really has nothing on the USD when it comes to buying drugs. Still, when you're asking why anyone would consider buying drugs with bitcoin to be wrong, you have to understand that not everyone considers that to be a positive or even entirely neutral act. Most people consider a currency whose primary use case involves breaking the law to be a net negative for society.
I can guarantee there are at least a dozen potential startups in this idea alone. Imagine some version of Linkedin or OKCupid, or even some general purpose scraper that correlates identities and social media accounts through facial recognition and online photos.
Even better, facial recognition plus a decent method of determining height, weight and ethinicity, and you have an x-ray specs app. The first person to make that work is probably going to be a millionaire.
But typically, the sort of people who blithely compare the US to a police state do so by invoking the Nazis. I wasn't going to credit such arguments with that much subtlety or self-awareness, since they seem to come from a sense of prejudice and knowledge of pop culture rather than history. Although you're right - there are a number of recent police states and dictatorships which the US does not resemble.
Because no intelligent, technically competent person has ever had a reasonable criticism to make about Glass, or the track record of the company making it, in regards to privacy and participation with NSA surveillance, or of the potential downsides to adding even more ubiquitous, fine-grained surveillance to the modern world.
I mean, Glass is no more ominous than cellphones. It's just a cellphone strapped to your face and pointed right at everyone you're looking at. No one would be creeped out if you held your cellphone out in front of you and recorded everything going on. It even has a little light that shows when you're recording, which is controlled by perfectly trustworthy software.
>What if Ensure had a cool name and didn't carry connotations of age and disease?
"Soylent" carries connotations of being made of the ground up corpses of the poor, so...
> What if it was easy to flavour and make delicious?
Is it easier to do with Soylent than Ensure, or any other drink? You can put sugar into anything, and "delicious" is relative.
> What if you signed up for a subscription and never thought about it again?
Other services offer food delivery, and arguably, just going to the store is often more convenient and cost effective.
>What if you got it from vending machines that were everywhere you went and recognised you as you approached, having a glass perfectly formulated to your tastes and needs at that precise moment ready?
Soylent doesn't have vending machines networked to some sort of facial-recognition AI.
>What if it came out of a tap?
Soylent doesn't come out of a tap.
> What if your home 3D printer could form it into a multitude of shapes and textures (bar, cookie, cereal) and it would still be nutritionally balanced?
That's an argument for the transformational nature of 3d printing, not Soylent.
> or is it easier, instead of using your imagination and a bit of enthusiasm, to point to how it's similar to a crappy product that nobody bothered to market, and imply that it won't be sucessful - because we all know the success and impact of a product has nothing to do with the creativity, perserverance and vision of the creators, right?
It is similar. Everything you've mentioned about how revolutionary Soylent is, appears to be either marketing hype (Ensure doesn't iterate, it isn't hip, it's associated with old people, etc etc) or pie-in-the-sky stuff that doesn't even relate to Soylent as a product, and doesn't even exist. The argument that the Soylent which actually exists is basically Ensure for hipsters still seems valid.
They would emphatically say no, but the Trinity suggests otherwise.
Three distinct entities, with distinct personalities, goals and natures: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son forgives easily, the Father holds grudges for generations. It's an unforgivable sin to blaspheme against one, but not the others. Meanwhile, the description of the Trinity as essentially distinct aspects of a single being is similar to some interpretations of Hinduism. There is at least a superficial (and not at all radical) case to be made that Christianity is monotheistic in name only.
So would, or do, Muslims consider Christians to be polytheists? I don't know. But it seems they would need to for that verse to really apply.
Although... Christian teaching holds the Old Testament to be as sacred and inerrant as the New, and that has many examples of God (the Father) commanding His people to stone the unclean and murder the infidels (which at the time would be anyone not a Jew, because of course the God of Israel was, exclusively, the God of Israel, (until He wasn't)) and the Book of Revelations is almost entirely about a holy war between Christians and Everyone and Everything Else.
Yet, I doubt you would find the majority of Christians or Jews holding to such a violent and literal interpretation of scripture. Some, yes, obviously. In the US at least, apocalyptic Christian theology is big business (just see the Left Behind and assorted clones in any bookstore) and big politics.
Nevertheless, it is no more the case that all Muslims want the infidels dead (but only a few are willing to pull the trigger) than it is that all Christians want every woman on her period within the city limits to be stoned to death. The truth is, most religious people are hypocrites, and the world remains the better for it, and both Islam and Christianity could (and have, now and then) justify genocide and hate with their Scriptures if they wanted, because both religions come from a time when those were SOP for religions and societies.
There are a ton of features in modern PHP which address a lot of the common criticisms brought against it. Doing a proper comparison with other languages (framework to framework, not framework to language) I think PHP measures up reasonably well.
But there is so much terrible, legacy code out there. The evolution, if it's happening is happening very slowly.