I dislike how "LAMP" is considered a first class citizen, still. Why is "LAMP" preferable to things like nginx, PostgreSQL, Python, Ruby, or other now extremely popular alternatives?
Those may be extremely popular alternatives. But they are alternatives to something, and that something is LAMP. LAMP is a standard one can count on being available on linux-distros, and it is a standard which makes it very easy to develop something for the internet on. As much as I like Ruby, I would not dare to assume that Apache+PHP alone isn't way more popular in terms of general use.
The one thing though that I count on getting replaced on that stack is MySQL, though the M might stay. If Debian hasn't done that already.
But they are alternatives to something, and that something is LAMP.
This simply isn't true. Web development is done in many languages, and while the P in there stands for several of them, it's entirely inaccurate to suggest that any or all of them are somehow a default value deployment or development.
Web development deployment environments are not the sole purpose of Debian, and the purpose of non-'P' development languages is not to serve as potential but perpetually-sidelined alternatives to this arbitrary default.
It's not just for devs, but loads of people just want their Wordpress/Drupal/MediaWiki/Gallery/phpBB/Joomla website to work, or they want to sell shared hosting to customers who want that.
The fact that Debian has a "task" for LAMP is really a reflection of how simple the architecture is: you can press a button to install LAMP and then you can install any one of the applications I mentioned on top of it. LAMP is not a "default" by any means, it's just something easy to stick in the package manager, something that a lot of people use.
Sure, you can also press a button to install Rails or Django, but those are more self-contained and don't need to be packaged separately as tasks.
The reason LAMP is mentioned as important is because a lot of people do use it and do depend on it. In an ideal world, every application would work on Debian. But with finite resources, you make a list of the things you want to test the most.
PHP is accounts for the majority of lower end web dev and even some % of the high end.
Having a LAMP stack that works up and running in one command is great for people who just want to FTP up a bunch of folders and be done with it.
People developing on Rails etc are probably developing against some specific version rather than "whatever happens to be in the repo" and are more likely to be either using a specialist environment like heroku or bring their own puppet setup to the party.
And why you are sitting around ycombinator trashing php and talking about which stack is superior, I've gotten loads done with it.
You can write awful code with php or you can write great code with php or something in-between, it's up to the developer.
The fact that you go so out of your way to trash php going to the lengths to question "why lamp is treated as a first class citizen", actually just goes to show your own utter dependency on development environment and existing code base.
So if there is crappy code out there, suddenly you become incapable of writing good code? No, so why sit around on sites and trash a programming language that the final product completely depends on the skill level of the person writing it.
You touch php and all you write is shit code? Maybe you are just shitty at programming? You don't "have" to use ruby or python to write clean, well thought out code. Please get off your high horse and understand that people get shit done using the lamp stack, and give it a rest.
Do you berate any other programmer anytime you see them writing perl as well? You are not superior to anyone because of the technology stack you use.
edit: how about you downvoters, actually come up with a coherent response and tell me why I'm wrong instead of treating this site like reddit and downvoting what you don't understand.
eddit2: I've noticed you have a nice github repo, which includes https://github.com/radiosilence/Ham All of your code looks clean and very decent, I'm just pointing out that php is obviously a good enough language for you to waste your own time developing in it!
Actually, the situation is worse than you make it look. Most sites are running WordPress, which isn't particularly secure out of the box, and only gets worse as poorly written plugins are added.
Debian is a distribution for bureaucrats. For installations that are just being maintained. If you are anything close to hacker do yourself a favor and use something else.
Hackers also appreciate having a stable, even conservative, foundation on which to build, especially when it's time to put a service in production, scale it to multiple servers, and keep up-to-date with security patches.
There is nothing to stop Debian users from using Rails, Django, Node.js, or any of the other alternatives to LAMP. SOme of them are even packaged in Debian.
I'm running LMDE and I've got all the goodies by default. If there is something else that the package manager doesn't cover, I do this amazing thing... I download the source and make! Crazy, I know.
