Why Developers Hate PHP

because this kind of rants are pointless, they are not bringing any value. Every language comes with their own inconsistencies or oddity. Most of those points raised are just added to a laundry list for its own sake, it's not something you come along every single day. You might have a WTF moment once in a while but that's something that happens with every language. I'm still not able to understand why everyone hate PHP and then at the same time love Javascript or Python or Ruby.

Laravel is pretty sweet, I recently scoped it out (been in Flask land and itching to try some Elixir/Phoenix) and it's got everything, exploring the queues now. I really like the helpers for accessing array elements through dot notation. Example:

  $data = [
  'more' => [
      'complex' => ['my value']
   ]
  ];

  if (array_key_exists('more', $data) && array_key_exists('complex', $data['more']) && array_key_exists(0, $data['more']['complex'])) {
  echo $data['more']['complex'][0];
  }

You can do this:

  echo Arr::get($data, 'more.complex.0');

Plus the bog standard php null coalescing operator "??" is pretty sweet.

  // fetch the value of $_GET['user'] and returns 'not passed'
  // if username is not passed
  $username = $_GET['username'] ?? 'not passed';

Just some little things off the top of my head. *Formatting.

> Developers hate PHP because you are more likely to get errors with a language that allows so much freedom.

Ruby gives you much more freedom than PHP. You can reopen classes, you can use any kind of object as a key in an associative array, you can write code that will execute when the class (not the instance) is being created. And yet I find it much easier to write stable code in Ruby.

> Developers hate PHP because it is the opposite of hype driven development

Does C# gets so much hate? Or Python? I don't think either of them is an example of hype driven development, and yet they are rather respected languages that don't get so much hate.

> Developers hate PHP because they believe the language has been stagnating for 20 years.

Again, I don't think that's it. I've been using PHP7 for the last few months and yes, it is different from PHP4. You have optional static typing, you have better tools, a lot has changed. Yet deep in its core the language is still badly designed. I constantly find some weird behaviours that just don't exist in other languages.

Example:

  $array = [1,2,3,4]
  array_filter($array, function($x) { return $x %2 === 0; });

In every other language I've used, such function would return [2,4], but not in PHP.

  array_merge(
    [ "a" => "w", "1" => "x" ],
    [ "a" => "y", "1" => "z" ]
  )

In every other language I know, it would return [ "a" => "y", "1" => "z" ], but PHP returns [ "a" => "y", 0 => "x", 1 => "z" ]

I know, these are just random examples and every language has its quirks. The problem is that in PHP there are so many quirks I keep checking how each function works, because after half a year I still can't remember them (and I don't remember whether array is a first or a second argument, because it depends on a function).

I wouldn't say that I hate PHP. It's another tool that I know and am able to use. I just think in 2020 in most cases when you start writing a new web application, there are plenty of better options. So maybe that's where the hate comes from? That there are simply many more consistent languages that just remain less popular than PHP?

And she's right. Just the `fopen` example is bad enough. It's characteristic of the whole ecosystem. Python and others do not have issues like that.

It's a footgun waiting to happen as you switch between PHP and other languages.

This is not really a question like any other, because it's a very polarizing one.

It's fair to intentionally ask polarizing questions if the objective is to find how if a candidate can take moderate positions in those contexts, but it's definitely not like "any question in interviews".