This isn't a specific draw to PHP, for example several Python frameworks have some flavor of 'debug toolbar' which does the same. Nice feature if you do use PHP otherwise, though.

The downvotes may be partly because you are using an article about a specific Ruby project as a jumping off point to promote another language, which is slightly obnoxious - make a thread for your new PHP stuff you are interested in, people who are happily using Ruby don't need to be exhorted to use other languages for no specific reason

You're being downvoted because your comment (or any comment in the style of 'but Y does this already!') adds no value to the discussion.

Does it have an inline context aware repl? It saves me the trouble of putting the breakpoint, running the request again, and removing the breakpoint.

> You even have a complete analysis for each request, that you can open with one click:

Do I get the queries generated for the request and time it took for them? And the time it took for the templates to be rendered?

Werkzeug debugger and flask-debug-toolbar are my baseline for debugging toolbars. They don't try to be everything and give me everything I need.

> You guys would be amazed if you tried frameworks like Symfony (instead of discarding PHP for not being beautiful or whatever)

Helpful exception logs and inline repls are one of n things to take into consideration. This alone isn't going to buy any converts.

At the end of day, they are convenience tools. It's not like I can't debug code or profile db requests without them. If I can get an inline context aware repl, superb. If not, good old breakpoints are mighty fine.

The PHP ECOSYSTEM has some awesome stuff, I completely agree. A lot of the companies with a decent amount of tech brand behind them in the HN community still use it a lot.

In saying that, the PHP LANGUAGE has some pretty glaring and terrifying warts, a fact that Rasmus doesn't try to hide.

Guys, just because you do Rails doesn't mean you can't get to know other frameworks too.

I came to Rails from Symfony and there are definitely things I miss. Rails is way better overall, but there are loads of little things that were fantastically useful.

The downvotes are overzealous in this case. A comment like this offers useful additional info/context about other languages that offer comparable capability, since many developers keep more than one type of screwdriver in their toolbox (or at least like to stay abreast of how their screwdriver du jour compares with other tools).

fyi rack-mini-profiler does timeline stuff https://github.com/SamSaffron/MiniProfiler/tree/master/Ruby

Looks to me like a ton of time was put into the design. Don't think this kind of "it sucks but I am not going to explain why" comment really adds much.