PHP

When I first wrote about Heimdallr, I saw it as a project which was going to be written in Python using Django. I have been using both PHP and Python since their initial releases, but something made that pairing stand out.  First, outside of it using colons with indention to indicate code blocks, I have liked the ecosystem with stronger typing like C/C++, whereas PHP was weaker in its typing.

I have been using jQuery DataTables for some years now, and have yet to find anything better. With its ability to produce tables with AJAX, built in sorting, filtering and more, I have used it to display datasets of over a million records. The problem comes when writing the backend code to create the DataTable and handle the AJAX requests. Recently, I started writing a Django application to track my job applications, since the spreadsheet was getting unwieldy with hundreds of rows. But unlike using PHP and Zend Framework, I have a ways to go.

Well, earlier today, I got a reminder that I had not upgraded PHP. Indeed, unlike most of my installs, the virtual host running my WordPress sites was installed from a Live CD, and was running the dated PHP 5.4 version which CentOS/RHEL 7 comes with as a part of their base. It is a joy of running an operating system which comes with "long term support", aka LTS.