I used to feel the same way a lot of times, a shame it seems for being a PHP dev. Now, I don't care. I've been using it since 1999, and I use it to get stuff done.
My customers and users of my applications don't care what it's written in.
But, you should definitely learn more languages as a programmer.
> And to anyone considering programming as a career, or trying to get into it... stay away from PHP.
This is the part I disagree with the most. The language is getting better and better with every release. It's incredibly fast, much safer to use (the Error exception type, scalar static type hints, all the garbage from the early 2000's has been removed), and easy to work with. The ecosystem (with the introduction of Composer) has _completely_ changed and reinvigorated the language. It's easily one of the best package managers out there. I definitely recommend giving PHP a look or a second change if you've written it off.
The thing that hurts PHP the most is lack of structure and patterns used in the most popular projects. These popular projects are usually where the bulk of work lies, where developers point to when they're considering PHP. When juniors start they're typically working on WordPress or Drupal. The problem is that WordPress and Drupal are terrible guides of how to write a web app and that knowledge is completely useless when you go to write something in an actual framework. I was expecting a lot with Drupal 8 but I decided against using it entirely after reviewing the codebase and testing it out, 7 is in no way compatible with 8 and you have to start over.
When you step outside these mini ecosystems and look at PHP as a vanilla tool to work or to use a proper micro/full framework you start to question why use PHP at all? One possibly acceptable framework, in my opinion, is Laravel. The problem is PHP outside of these mini ecosystems isn't nearly as popular. It looks like people migrate to an entire new language like Python, Ruby, Node, etc. If we're talking about sheer people hiring Ruby, Node and Python typically trump PHP every time and are using frameworks - not Drupal or WordPress. Granted there are custom PHP apps out there and some very good ones but they're not the norm.
I switched full-time to Python using Flask and Django. It's like a breath of fresh air. My 2 cents is if you're on the fence, figure out how to work on one project using this new language full-time. Then you can make a better decision.
Awkward auto-inserted blog ad after that post...
> ... And to anyone considering programming as a career, or trying to get into it… stay away from PHP. There’s lots of fun, interesting languages out there that also get the job done quick, but with a better reputation and this will have an actual effect on your future career options.
> Looking for a PHP developer for your next project? I'm looking for work! Check out my resume or drop me a line!
I hate PHP too, but I write it almost every day at work. There's something to be said for how stable it is. I spent a large amount of my career doing .net development and deployed very rarely. It was a big day when I deployed. I would say to my wife, probably going to late tonight, we're deploying. Because something always went wrong when deploying.
Here, I deploy every other morning. Usually, while my coffee is getting to the right temp. The ability to just "throw it on the server", and to take it back if you need to make it great. There's a bunch of devs here, and that deploy all day long every day is one of the main reasons we move "so much faster" than our competition.
So as much as I hate how weird it is, and how frustrating it is not to have strong typing... i respect the heck out of it.
"There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses" -- Bjarne Stroustrup
"Developers who more-so live in the Java-dominant corporate bubble"
That's me but ... I've known quite a few good PHP developers like this author. I've also seen horrible, horrible things - things that other languages and frameworks simply won't let you do. A language that gives you a lot of slack also gives you more opportunity to hang yourself. There's nothing that says you have to hang yourself.
As mentioned, the barrier to entry is low with PHP. The combination of a "loose" language and a newbie programmer is dangerous. And didn't all of us, as newbs, think we were done when it seemed to work properly? So the correct statement is not that PHP sucks, it's that many write sucky PHP. I'd rather see everyone aspire to not sucking (and certainly not hanging themselves) regardless of the language they use.
NOTE: I wrote a lot of PHP code in the late '90s and reworked part of a project in 2005/2006 so I obviously don't know anything about the current state of PHP. I'm not against it - I simply choose not to use it (at least at the moment).
I worked at a PHP-based company and after a year of intense interviewing, we finally decided to switch core languages and tech stacks because we weren't attracting strong enough candidates.
What we found is that most good programmers didn't want to work in php and most php developers were designers that learned how to code php. But they didn't understand CS fundamentals or even a decent idea how to code. They could cobble together a web site that worked and even looked great, but they didn't know how to write maintainable, modular code.
It got to the point where I would ask the candidate to merge two sorted arrays and 70% couldn't do it properly.
In terms of language, I thought php itself was a surprisingly productive language. I just quit though because I didn't want to be known as a php developer because of the stigma and there poor quality of other php developers that I encountered.
> It sucks that every HTTP request is a whole new instance of my PHP application.
In fact, this is one of PHPs greatest strongs, not a weakness! NodeJS, Ruby and especially long-running Java web apps easily turn into huge memory leaks.
PHP, on the other hand... not so much.
> PHP is generally not approved in the enterprise
I believe OP is looking from the wrong angle. There certainly are successful, enterprise-used PHP applications (e.g. SugarCRM, Drupal, Typo3), so it certainly is not a problem of approval.
IMHO the real problem is the total dominance of (extremely!) outdated COBOL/FORTRAN/(other mainframe stuff), SAP and Java (hello Lotus Notes!) applications in business.
"The 2016 StackOverflow Survey puts PHP developers as the least paid" - which is very unfair. I think PHP developers should actually get paid more as compensation for having to put up with PHP on a day-to-day basis, but that's just me unfortunately...
This is one of my fears, as I work primarily modernizing PHP applications.
I think it's possible my salary has hit a plateau. Most SMBs do a false equivalence between PHP developers and junior developers. One place I worked at the owner used to brag about hiring people starting out for $12/hr.
The thing is, with my experience in PHP it's easier for me to write secure code in PHP than anything else at this point. I can do it really fast, too. I've internalized a lot of micro-optimizations in PHP. Project scaffolding on a greenfield project ends up looking a LOT like Express if you use the Slim framework. And I stay away from PHP if I need concurrency (and so far, per business requirements, I haven't). I can scale it really well, and I rarely have to worry about memory limits like you do with the JVM.
I'm hoping for a breath of fresh air with PHP7, because I'm not entirely sold on the current runtime alternatives - JavaScript, Python or Ruby. I've been trying Scala and I write less code than Java, but definitely more than PHP. It's also hard to jump into the Play framework if you don't grok the 'weird' operators. I also find that it's easier to hang yourself with incompatible components/libraries. So far it's fun to write though, but I don't think I've seen anyone hiring for Scala in my town.
The vacuum of negativity is vast and relative. Who cares if Java developers think they're better than PHP developers? From the perspective of a C developer neither can properly allocate and manage memory effectively if their life depended on it (heap-based programming, lolzors).
In my experience the modern PHP developer is characterized by a crippling self-consciousness. When I meet someone who is a fellow developer and tell them that I do C and Python and stuff... they usually begin with a bit of self-deprecating humor: I do PHP and stuff, not real programming like you, blah blah blah. I feel obligated to correct them.
The best thing you can do for yourself as a programmer is to not pigeon-hole yourself to a single language regardless of how tempting it might be from an economic/marketing perspective. Learn maths and get good at identifying problems and simplifying them. Become an expert in at least one general-purpose language and one specialized one for sure... but remember to think like an engineer: these are just the brick and mortar of the job! You still need a good mind for design, creating blueprints, and the experience to make informed trade-offs.
PHP is good for many things. Deal with it.
IMHO the best part is the footnote: `Looking for a PHP developer for your next project? I'm looking for work!`
It's not about a language or a technology, it's about what you do or can do with it...
All trendy technologies might be replaced anytime (hey React, Go, I'm looking at you!), one day they are very cool, the next day nobody maintains them and everyone talks about another new cool thing; how many of these have we seen?
New cool stuff are important to know, explore, test, use because they bring a lot of interesting stuff, but often they only address some use cases, as they have been made by a team with specific needs (looking at all hundreds NoSQL databases?); php and some others (like ruby) are stable, well known, cover a vast area of use cases with very well made and long thought frameworks and tools (symfony, doctrine, phpstorm, ...).
You are always free to follow trends, like with clothes, or just choose the best thing for what you need to do. You'll definitely find jobs with any of these, if you are able to explain why they are good for what you are doing.
I hate it, because it makes me feel defensive. PHP in their minds
is much worse than it practically is. Im tired of defending
PHP, Im tired of being set back and having to proof my compete
by virtue of being a PHP programmer.
What Evert is referring to (the "reputation" of PHP and people's reactions) is even worse in infosec. I very frequently get accused of being a charlatan simply because I write PHP.
Some people openly question if a PHP developer who understands security exists at all: https://twitter.com/MalwareJake/status/506488937096183808
This is silly when you think about it. If so many systems run PHP, wouldn't you want your infosec people to know PHP and work with it more often? Why are we, culturally, encouraging such a blind spot by ostracizing folks who know it well? That part never made sense to me.
This conversation plays out more frequently than I like:
Rando: Hahaha PHP security is an oxymoron.
Me: Okay, then hack paragonie.com. It runs PHP. Logically, you should
be able to hack it _just for running PHP_ if PHP is so insecure.
Rando: But that website's mostly static content!
Me: Yes, but it runs PHP. So it must be insecure, right?!
TL;DR - A lot of the hate against PHP is founded on ignorance and peer pressure. Be open to constructive criticism, of course, but a lot of the hate you'll hear is bullshit.
I agree with the sentiment that, compared to other languages, all else being equal, PHP-the-language sucks; and also agree that all else is not equal, since PHP has a massive installed base, infrastructure support, etc., and that the balance can often tip either way. My first programming job was in PHP, which was used only because of its ubiquity on shared hosting (we even maintained support for PHP 4, when PHP 5.3 was current).
Personally, I don't see much point in arguing the merits of PHP compared to, say, Python, Ruby or Javascript, since those languages are so similar: procedural scripting by default; opt-in use of OO as the happy path for most libraries; functional programming possible, but an uphill struggle WRT APIs, tailcalls, language cruft, etc.
There's also a lot of interbreeding in those language's ecosystems, so there's rarely a killer library/framework/app in one which doesn't have a few carbon copies in the others. I would recommend developers in those languages look at what the others are doing, but I don't see much point in switching between them as an end to itself; go for it when convenient, but nothing much will change (e.g. I was heavily into Python, but fell into PHP dev roles commercially).
The more interesting comparisons are to be made with languages/ecosystems which have a different philosophy, e.g. Java/C#, Haskell/ML, Lisp/Scheme/Lua, C/Go/Rust, C++/D, Smalltalk, Forth, etc. Those kinds of comparison have meat; they're not just bikeshedding about which syntax to write imperative procedural/OO scripts in. I commend the author's choice of learning Go (although I'm not familiar with it myself).
I think the procedural/OO scripting languages will be around for a while to come, but I think their niche is in public-facing applications (usually Web sites, but Python certainly has a heritage of desktop GUIs and CLIs). Certainly the use of REST services is making it easier to use languages for those jobs they're good at; for example, using Go for data crunching, while Web site rendering is done in PHP.
I come from a Java background and right now I'm working with some PHP. As a tool for websites, it is as such, OK. It feels a bit messy and "ADHD" at the core, but for non-critical stuff its acceptable. With "non-critical" I mean: systems that won't kill anyone if they fail. See, one of my early projects was designing and building control systems for a huge pharmaceuticals factory. Errors, in either logic or data, could literally end up killing someone. Testing became 2nd nature. Since that experience, I've evaluated programming languages by how robust their error-handling mechanisms are and how much rigour is enforced at compile-time. In that arena, I think Java is the most mature. In critical systems, checked exceptions -are- your friend. One glaring problem with PHP is its freak error-handling. PHP can get the job done, but don't trust your life to it.
I left PHP for C# and JS. I've been burnt so many times from the tacky standard library it's not even funny. Coding php in a large application is both boring and hard. XDebug barely works and is hard to set up.
Still, PHP is so goddamn cheap it's not even funny. But I recognize everything the author is describing.
The author's biggest mistake wasn't betting on PHP, it was betting on a single language. He should have learned more languages a long time ago, just to expand his set of tools, and maybe way of thinking.
Besides, learning a new language is fun and not that hard... They are all pretty much the same...
Sadly, most of the complaints to PHP as a language also apply to JavaScript (even worse IMO), but seems like people are more forgiving to the JavaScript/ Node.js community nowadays.
Programming with PHP is sort of like eating/buying McDonald's food.
Yes it gets the job done and you can argue it is readily available, a calorie is a calorie etc....
...but the reality is even "new" McDonald's is not terribly good for you and people will judge you if continuously eat there (I'm not saying that is a good thing but it does happen. Just try asking coworkers to go there with you).
And that is the point. The OP doesn't like to be judged but the general consensus is PHP is "probably" not good for you long term (regardless of the caveats of the language one cannot argue that other language programmers are generally paid much higher).
Imagine it this way. Imagine a fitness professional saying: "you know calories are the main thing that make you fat so I eat a small McDonald's meal and fast the rest of the day".... what would you think of this fitness expert... would it honestly not affect your judgement?
I'm not saying PHP is bad... I'm just saying I understand the behavior the OP doesn't like.
Such a tiring debate.
This is what a function call looks like in PHP:
myfunc($arg1,$arg2);
Functions can represent any subset of computation within a program, or in some cases a function can represent all of the computations of an entire program. If you're hung up on small nuances of a language, you're probably just not doing it right. That's not a bad thing. A lot of people find themselves in this position, but the bottom line is you're probably just not writing your programs with the correct lower level abstractions.
That's it. It's not magic, but it's not always easy either. You shouldn't feel bad about it. Just keep trying and one day you'll realize that very little of what makes a great programmer has anything to do with the language you're using.
NOTE: This isn't in response to the author. They appear to have a strong reputation within the PHP community. This is really just a general response to all of the PHP hate in this thread.
> We’re not taken as seriously, and we’re being paid less. The 2016 StackOverflow Survey puts PHP developers as the least paid. Hilariously that position is shared with “LAMP” and “Wordpress”, both of which are also PHP.
The author didn't explicitly state it as a causal relationship, but doesn't this have more to do with supply and demand than respect?
It's true that if you're a guru in a more esoteric language you're going to earn more respect than a guru in PHP (although if you're really a guru in PHP you're probably also pretty good in more respected languages).
But it's also true that your skills would be in much higher demand for any available jobs in that esoteric language than PHP skills are for its available jobs.
[EDIT: I suppose an argument that cuts the other way is that PHP projects -- regardless of what the employers know or care about the language -- tend to be lower status and lower paying than those built on more esoteric or more "serious" languages.]
> A big part of this issue is that the barrier to entry in PHP is so damn low, almost everyone can start hacking wordpress templates. For many people, PHP is the first programming language they try without formal education.
This really hits the nail on the head. A lot of the criticism of PHP comes from people who have never worked with a good PHP codebase and have only seen some of the many examples of awful PHP code out there. A well written PHP codebase is really nice to work with.
> The problem I have with PHP has nothing to do with the language, it’s its reputation. I can’t count the times I’ve started a conversation with a programmer who upon finding out I primarily do PHP got awkward with me.
I've experienced this many times as well. I think the previous point is really the root cause of this. People have a lot of misinformed ideas about PHP due to the sheer amount of really low quality PHP code and "developers" (i.e. people with no experience just trying to get shit done).
Can we just stop with these posts? It's like saying "ice cream sucks". That's just like, your opinion man.
> The problem I have with PHP has nothing to do with the language, it’s its reputation. I can’t count the times I’ve started a conversation with a programmer who upon finding out I primarily do PHP got awkward with me.
I'm a developer. I use tools to get things done. PHP is one of many tools in my arsenal. For certain projects, it's awesome. For others, it's very much not awesome.
That's the beginning and the end of it. I don't get defensive. If I bring up PHP and someone says something like, "Oh, I’m sorry about that" -- that's an indication of that person's immaturity, not any weakness on my part. It's a super condescending thing to say to someone...
If I didn't just give up on them at that point, maybe I'd explain why I chose PHP. If I'm wrong and I'm actually making a bad choice of tools for the given project -- happy to have that conversation and learn a thing or two!
So much uneducated hate going on in the comments section here. As someone who's developed high load projects in a few languages (C++, PHP, Node.js, ColdFusion, Rails) I can say with absolute certainty that any of the modern, popular languages are just as good as the other. What some may see as a slight, others will see as a strength. It's up to the programmer to write structured, thought-out code. Heck, one can argue that too much forced structure can be bad for performance (assuming skilled programmers are at work).
As an aside, my favorite syntax is C#.
But at the end of the day, the author has the right idea and it seems many of you don't. If you're a skilled programmer the language is a preference, not a precursor to what your app will turn out to be. If for any other reason than platform related your code turned out bad it's a good indication you're not one of those skilled programmers.
"The problem I have with PHP has nothing to do with the language, it’s its reputation. I can’t count the times I’ve started a conversation with a programmer who upon finding out I primarily do PHP got awkward with me."
The HN post title is sure helping with the reputation.
There are always two responses after an article like this:
> PHP is great at gettings things done, pedantic points about design don't matter.
> PHP is a huge mess of a language - that people have overcome that to create things doesn't change that.
Both of these responses can be (and are, imo) true.
Well now you got a bunch of alternatives :
Asp.net on linux, Go, Elixir, Python, Ruby,Java ...
PHP kinda saved itself when it got Java like classes(which are fairly rigid thus allowed retrofitting "type safety" in PHP) which allowed engineers to write large and maintainable codebases (Symfony,Doctrine...).
So again, no need to complain, go see your manager and try to convince him to try an alternative solution. Of course if you're using a CMS like Worpdress or Magento it might be a bit more complicated to migrate. But for projects started from scratch frankly, an engineer that can write a Symfony/Doctrine app can easily switch to Asp.net, it's exactly the same level of complexity.
http://hammerprinciple.com/therighttool/items/php
http://www.azquotes.com/author/47278-Rasmus_Lerdorf
As a language designer myself, I would find it hard to design a language worse than PHP, but Mark Rendle has tried: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/worst-programming-langua...
I remember teaching myself PHP back in 2001 after the dotcom crash. I still use it occasionally to whip up quick sites on a shared server setup. I have also used to quickly build out some web based systems at my day job.
You can hate it as much as you like, but bad code comes from bad coding practices. PHP has all the features other languages have. It even fairs pretty well in the benchmarks game against its peers http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/
Its so funny that people are so polarized either for or against PHP. Give me a language that doesn't have pitfalls and stuff that doesn't make sense and I'll show you an Amish NASCAR driver.
The one thing I never understood about developers is how your programming languages are a total pissing match. If it gets the job done, who gives a fuck if it has a few quirks here and there? Can you create something cool? Can it be properly secured? Ok, great, let's focus on building something instead of whether we're using wood or concrete.
For anyone wishing to look at a small modern PHP7+async codebase, check out https://github.com/Room-11/Jeeves (I am not involved with it). It shows the new guts of the language, and AFAIK some PHP core contributors wrote part of that code as well.
On the article itself, it is a mindset issue with people. Not sure how it is different from people saying "haskell is useless" or "JS is a toy language".
PHP Sucks, but so what? http://drupal.ovh/nobody-gives-a-shit-about-php
PHP is awesome for Stage 2 level projects in this model: http://devblog.procore.com/dev/evolution-of-software-applica...
Once you need a framework and the complexity that goes with it, PHP starts to suck. It lacks the behavior and tools to nicely manage complexity beyond a pile of files.
But when what you need is a pile of files, PHP is awesome.
That's why I like Brainfuck as my goto language so I don't have to deal with the newbs jumping into my language <sarcasm>. I once had a python programmer say I shouldn't use php because it doesn't have classes "so theres still some old thoughts on the language floating around" and I know java api devs who don't know the difference between POST or GET request so bad programmers come in all languages.
The problem of PHP is its community of cheap workers not caring.
But I love them. As long as they stayed doing PHP they didn't contaminated other communities.
Now that they came to python with their bad practices exacly for the bad reputation reasons described in the article, I see PHP kind of coding ... SQL injections, shell injections ....
Please PHP coders I love you doing PHP, don't leave PHP.
This post hits it on the head. I had been a 12+ year PHP developer and a little less than 2 years ago I had left PHP for Node.js because I was sick of constantly defending my competence to people who used PHP for 15 minutes back in PHP4 days or had to fiddle with a crappy WordPress theme/plugin and completely dismissed the whole ecosystem.
This is a great move on his part - every programmer should know as many languages as they feasibly can. Being a monolingual programmer is like being a carpenter who only uses hammers. Or maybe a better analogy would be an investor who only owns stock in one fund, or a physicist who only studies one type of particle.
If I listened to developers as a group I would think all tools/languages suck and I would have never bothered entering this industry.
Anyway...
>> For many people, PHP is the first programming language they try without formal education.
>> We’re not taken as seriously, and we’re being paid less.
Is this one of those correlation not causation things I keep hearing about?
The true programmer doesn't get attached to one language or another. If you get 'fed up' with a language and switch, then you are taking the language way too seriously. Use languages for what their particular strengths are, and that's it.
>This is frustrating, but the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.
What a great way to look at this. Author has some really interesting insights into why the PHP stigma exists and the problems that it creates for a (good) PHP developer.
Is the success thanks to PHP or in spite of PHP?
With a decent IDE like phpstorm, modern PHP is surprisingly pleasant to program. I would never use Java/C# again if it's up to me.
https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ No, you're right, it's just a matter of reputation. The language and its mindset are not to blame... ;-)
While RoR, Python, NodeJS et al don't solve the most annoying issue for every developer: Deployment. Then they don't solve anything.
And don't start talking about docker... that's a patch/hack to a serious problem, if i need an entire "jail manager" just to run your app then deployment is not as easy as you kins think it is.
I'm not saying the article doesn't have merit but with a title like this it looks just like karmawhoring.
I wouldn't ever recommend a beginner learn PHP. I would definitely recommend a beginner learn Laravel. It has tremendously awesome free or inexpensive learning materials, great documentation, great community support, and comes out of the box with everything you would need for 95% of websites.
From the bottom of the article: "I regret using such a clickbaity title, but . . . . " You could have called it, "PHP's stigma sucks and I'm leaving." It would have been more attractive and honest, instead of piling on more of the stigma that you dislike.
PHP "sucks" as a language, but it's productive, great for getting things done. It has some decent frameworks, like Laravel. You can bang out a ton of functionality quickly.
I've made a ton of money doing PHP contracting locally. For my day job, it's been Python, Java, and Go.
to op: glad you're taking time to check out golang. I too have worked mainly as PHP dev since 1999 or so, and recognize most of what you are saying. I loved the new era of php with the composer ecosystem, but after investing too many hours into Laravel, i finally had enough when I realized I could not even use the backtraces to debug some issue I was having after upgrading. So I decided to never touch it again.
Coming from php to golang is insane, you will be very impressed by all the mature and insanely fast tooling.
For example I now have test suite running in about 0.3 seconds, where my last PHP (laravel) app took about 20 minutes testing similar stuff.
I don't think that PHP sucks, I think that lot of PHP projects sucks, because exists lot of newbie developers without any minimum knowledge about programming, making mess in lot of project just because is so easy to use PHP.
PHP is not worse than Ruby, definitely.
Composer is not a new wave but piece of shit which brings old shit-code style with rules "don't touch it while it works" and "legacy code is a good reason for bad architecture".
And Golang sucks too.
Is there some consultant out there who is getting paid good rates to program with Go, Rust, Elm, Erlang? I would love to hear some stories. Most people I know only get paid for php, rails or node.
PHP is a see-saw at a kids' playground; on one end there's a small, sensibly dressed kid and on the other, an overweight kid having a great time, with his/her side stuck firmly to the ground.
The child suspended in the air is wailing about how the whole playground is being totally ruined by the other kid.
The other children watch, bemused, from the other playground equipment, happy that they've grown out of the seesaw; all the parents watch from outside the playground, not caring who plays with what.
I'm overweight and enjoy seesaws. Yay!
PHP does suck. So much bad code written in such an awful language.
And yet this morning I'm earning yet another paycheck digging deep into PHP.
What is the good language? I am a web developer, what language should I learn to create websites?
Do you know any ressources that explains how to write "good" plain PHP?
Many great things suck.
PHP will still be the most accessible backend language for a long time and only JavaScript stands a chance at outcompeting it for a long time. (And yes I know JavaScript is normally seen as a frontend language)
PHP is awesome, have you experienced Powerbuilder? :)
people still use php? that's a surprise.
No language sucks.
Shit producing daemons suck.
I just don't think "you can make something that works with it" is a good barometer for whether a language sucks.
There are a huge number of ways to do something in PHP and most of them are terrible. Anyone can figure out how to do anything you would want to do in PHP. Good PHP developers (yes they exist) will know what NOT to do.
The nice thing about PHP is you can pick it up, write an app that does specifically what you need and someone else could maintain it relatively easily.
Most of the large code packages written in PHP are cumbersome, however. PEAR packages are written by some of the rudest, obnoxious, and anti-Zen people on Earth. Not to demonize them too much but I have had several encounters with PEAR people and they all went something like a Game of Thrones wedding.
PHP is an oddball child for sure but I get more done in it than anything else. Who gives a crap if other developers don't respect you? My bills are paid and I know I do good work, everything else is just bonus.
I'm kind of glad I'm very disconnected from the communities and the various groups that handle this stuff, I just write my code and go home. It sounds like thousands of bickering children.
people still use php? that's a surprise.
> PHP Sucks
tell me something new
Not news. Move on.
"PHP sucks because I have inadequacy issues." Well...alright then I guess. Feel better soon.
Every programming language sucks when you're bad at using it. This is the only and universal truth.
Same for JS.
A bad workman always blames his tools...
I'm by no means an expert on PHP but whenever I begin having similar thoughts like the author, or begin having internal language religion wars in my head about PHP, i remember that PHP actually stands for "PHast Prototyper" (language/platform)..and tools/platforms like that have their place in the world to help us...and then this thought allows me to regain my peace and progress forward on my day (focusing on bigger things). This does not mean PHP is inherently good or bad, merely a tool; to be used under the right conditions (in this case rapid dev.).
Perhaps remembering that PHP could mean "PHast Prototyper" could help you/your team come to terms with all this?
PHP is a toy language that's now being used in some reasonably grownup ways.
I've built a static analysis tool for it, and it sort of feels like writing a CAD tool for lego bricks.
I started freelancing in my area doing Ruby on Rails, and found it far harder to maintain a project. I also found it harder to acquire clients in my area for new RoR development.
More work was available locally with PHP. Clients were more willing to pay. I've done a ton of things in WordPress that shouldn't have been, "to save money". And I've done greenfield development with CodeIgniter, Laravel (v3 and v5), and a customized set of the Symfony components. I've also maintained and improved brownfield projects that were outsourced.
I'm very tired of hearing that PHP sucks. PHP is a good language. And in my opinion, it has fewer ways to sabotage your own project than any language with monkey patching. PHP7 looks really awesome, and the community has been upgrading quickly toward it. PHP has always had best-in-class documentation in my opinion.
More often it's the programmer who sucks, not the language.