Top all-time · #3115
Phil Sturgeon
Personal blog · philsturgeon.ukprogrammingwebother
Phil Sturgeon's personal blog at philsturgeon.uk covers programming and web. Since 2014, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 33 times, most often “T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM v. Sanity”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Phil Sturgeon's blog as a reference for PHP, REST versus GraphQL API design, and Markdown, usually to back up a point in a discussion.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Digital nomad, writing about APIs, van life, and unfucking the planet through reforestation and green tech.
Most-linked posts?
- T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM v. Sanity5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-07-30
- GraphQL vs. REST: Overview3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-05-22
- The State of Markdown (2014) – Phil Sturgeon2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-12-26
- /api/2017/01/26/graphql-vs-rest-caching/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-03-01
- Why is everyone outraged?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-01-28
- OpenAPI and JSON Schema Divergence: Part 12 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-04-02
- PHP 7 Feature Freeze2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-03-16
- Solving OpenAPI and JSON Schema Divergence2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-05-09
What Hacker News says?
Not as cool as this, but here are some PHP "frameworks" in a tweet (140 characters): http://www.twitto.org/ https://gist.github.com/mathiasverraes/9046427 https://philsturgeon.uk/php/2009/12/15/Twiny-Framework-the-f... https://gist.github.com/jeremeamia/2720020
Comment linking /php/2009/12/15/Twiny-Framework-the-framework-small-enough-to-tweet/
on “A bootable CD image with a retro game in a single tweet”Submitted A Response to REST Is the New SOAP as a story · 37 points
HN discussionYes it is comparable to Node. Most benchmarks show PHP with blocking calls against async Node calls. PHP has the tools to do async no problem. I use ReactPHP all the time to do this stuff; it works great for fast scraping. See an older counter-point with the much slower PHP 5.5: https://philsturgeon.uk/php/2013/11/12/benchmarking-codswall...
Comment linking /php/2013/11/12/benchmarking-codswallop-nodejs-v-php/
on “Taking PHP Seriously”Submitted OpenAPI and JSON Schema Divergence: Part 1 as a story · 28 points
HN discussionREST and GraphQL are two completely different things, and one is not a replacement for the other. REST is an architectural concept, whereas GraphQL is a query language spec. https://philsturgeon.uk/api/2017/01/24/graphql-vs-rest-overv...
Comment linking /api/2017/01/24/graphql-vs-rest-overview/
on “GitHub announcements: Marketplace, Apps and GraphQL API”Submitted If it aint broke don't fix it. A PHP (horror) story as a story · 17 points
HN discussionThis is the same exact reason why PHP double colon errors still include the `T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM` string somewhere in the error, as various error parsers still look for it even though the error messages have been updated to be clearer. The PHP team can't remove it or it will break tons of error parsers. https://philsturgeon.uk/php/2013/09/09/t-paamayim-nekudotayi...
Comment linking /php/2013/09/09/t-paamayim-nekudotayim-v-sanity/
on “Add detailed message to NullPointerException describing what is null”Submitted GraphQL vs. REST: Overview as a story · 9 points
HN discussionI've heard this argument often, what behavior are people referring to when they talk about these advantages? Is this just referring to using semantically correct HTTP status codes for things like caching, or is there more to it that I'm missing? edit: And also, and perhaps most important, what about REST makes it easier to take advantage of the transport layer's advantages? edit 2: This article has answered some of…
Comment linking /api/2017/01/26/graphql-vs-rest-caching/
on “Problems with RESTful APIs (2015)”Submitted The State of Markdown as a story · 6 points
HN discussionThe thing about One Special Bigger Request is that it isn't cacheable. GraphQL is no exception: https://philsturgeon.uk/api/2017/01/26/graphql-vs-rest-cachi... If you want network-level caching, you want multiple atomic resource requests. HTTP2 enables this.
Comment linking /api/2017/01/26/graphql-vs-rest-caching/
on “HTTP/2 is not the future, it’s the present”Submitted The State of Markdown (2014) – Phil Sturgeon as a story · 4 points
HN discussionFor those that (like me) hadn't heard of it: https://philsturgeon.uk/php/2013/09/09/t-paamayim-nekudotayi...
Comment linking /php/2013/09/09/t-paamayim-nekudotayim-v-sanity/
on “Benchmarks of PHP 7.2 Beta: PHP Is Still Getting Faster”Submitted PHP 7 Feature Freeze as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSome searching turns up some articles on incompatibilities between OpenAPI and JSON Schema [0] [1], and it's not immediately clear if they fit together well at this point. We've got some JSON Schema APIs in our services already and are using libs like the Python `json-schema` package to do validation with those. I also briefly experimented with Quicktype [2] to generate some TS types as a proof-of-concept. We're get…
Comment linking /api/2018/04/13/openapi-and-json-schema-divergence-solved/
on “Using JSON Schema to Document, Test, and Debug APIs”Submitted T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM v. Sanity as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's a whole update on the general state of markdown https://philsturgeon.uk/markdown/2014/11/30/state-of-markdow...
Comment linking /markdown/2014/11/30/state-of-markdown/
on “PHP CommonMark”Submitted Why is everyone outraged? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted HTTP Documentation with API Blueprint as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Auto-Incrementing IDs: Giving Your Data Away as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted T_paamayim_nekudotayim vs. Sanity (2013) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted _PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM v Sanity as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Solving OpenAPI and JSON Schema Divergence as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why is everyone outraged? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Laughs with the Google Maps API as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted I was an Extraordinary Alien – For a Week as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted OpenAPI and JSON Schema Divergence as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted GraphQL vs. REST: Overview as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Ratio of Women Speakers in Tech as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Avoid Hardcoding HTTP Status Codes as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
