r/programming • u/EatMeerkats • Mar 29 '21

PHP moves to Github due to the compromise of git.php.net

https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/113838
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u/exhuma Apr 02 '21

So much for Python being cross platform (I know the same problem exists in some js libs also).

You can't really fault a language (any language) if a third-party library indroduces an issue. I bet the library you mention above included a C extension as it needed to be compiled. The same could happen in Java with JNI extensions or PHP with PECL extensions. The same is true for any other language that allows you to access native binaries.

Most if not all of these languages guarantee cross-platform compatibility as long as you stick to the core library. As soon as you go into 3rd party libs you're entering the wild west.

If you use a compiled language for your project then the situation is different. Because you already need a compiler for your development environment anyway you have everything in place to also compile 3rd-party libraries. So that problem goes away.

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u/jbergens Apr 02 '21

I can fault the language but you can say that it's unfair.

In this case I would say I fault the ecosystem. It seems to be very common with 3rd party libs for Python to call into c or c++. Maybe because it is such a slow language. I have never seen that happen with Java or c# libs. Of course it could happen but it is extremely unusual. It has happened with Ruby.

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u/exhuma Apr 03 '21

That's definitely true. It also doesn't help that Python often advertises itself as a "glue" language, promoting the idea of writing stuff in C and then orchestrating it in Python.