No post body was provided.
Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#2[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#3No unless the only job offers around you are for PHP and you are not willing to move.
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#4Only if your preferred language is doing so badly in your area that you have no other choice.
For instance, I have been using Python all my career, but to this day it is a niche language in my country. I also know PHP, Java, and C++ from school and personal projects (guess which I used for school and which for personal projects), and I have considered job offers in the past when Python was extremely unmarketable. One of those times I had to move to another city for nearly a year to avoid switching to another language.
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#5imho ... why not!?
it's just "yet another c-style/curly brackets scripting language", which isn't hard to learn and especially easy to use and which was and still is heavily used in context of web-development.
why? its very efficient/productive ... which is of special interest for example for smaller fixed-rate projects, mvps and similar use-cases.
even if php has many flaws, it got a few things right and is for example available on nearly every webhoster out there ...
but: don't stop learning programming-languages with php. add for example javascript, but also python, some functional language - no, not haskel, i prefer ocaml - and other languages to your "selection of tools" ... :)
btw. another example ... "everybodys darling" javascript:
compared to javascript php is a pretty decent language ... just search the net on critiques on javascript, and despite that: everybody uses it.
why? because its in every browser / on every system / every mobile-platform etc.
availability/accessibility/... counts more than some academically influenced aesthetic discussions from some "theoretical computer-science point of view" ;))
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#6PHP is not going away anytime soon. The only downside, it has no use beyond web. If you're new to programming, no. Better focus on Python, Node, Go, Java, or even JavaScript. There's still a strong and in certain niches growing demand for PHP, but definitely not suitable for a beginner, as lots of that work involves maintaining and / or upgrading legacy code.
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#7imho ... why not!? it's just "yet another c-style/curly brackets scripting language", which isn't hard to learn and especially easy to use and which was and still is heavily used in context of web-development. why? its very efficient/productive ... which is of special interest for example for smaller fixed-rate projects, mvps and similar use-cases. even if php has many flaws, it got a few things right and is for exam…
btw.
"25 years of php" - an interesting talk about the background/history from its creator Rasmus Lerdorf
* https://youtu.be/wCZ5TJCBWMg
with a god point during the last 5 mins.
"work on things that matter (to you)"
ps.: imho ... don't waste your time on "vim vs emacs"/"win vs linux"/"python vs php"/... style discussions ... just use both.
use the best of both worlds. in the end this doesn't really matter as long as you get your work done ;))
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#8imho ... why not!? it's just "yet another c-style/curly brackets scripting language", which isn't hard to learn and especially easy to use and which was and still is heavily used in context of web-development. why? its very efficient/productive ... which is of special interest for example for smaller fixed-rate projects, mvps and similar use-cases. even if php has many flaws, it got a few things right and is for exam…
> nearly every webhoster out there
Why do people bring this up so often in 2020? When you can have a $5/month Linode and install anything you need.
I like PHP a lot, but wouldn't want to use / learn it in a constrained environment of an old-school webhost.
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#9imho ... why not!? it's just "yet another c-style/curly brackets scripting language", which isn't hard to learn and especially easy to use and which was and still is heavily used in context of web-development. why? its very efficient/productive ... which is of special interest for example for smaller fixed-rate projects, mvps and similar use-cases. even if php has many flaws, it got a few things right and is for exam…
> nearly every webhoster out there Why do people bring this up so often in 2020? When you can have a $5/month Linode and install anything you need. I like PHP a lot, but wouldn't want to use / learn it in a constrained environment of an old-school webhost.
just a rethorical question: whats your point!?
because there are lots of people who have other things to do than "bring up anything" on some cheap "roll-your-own" hosting-platform.
... ever considered TCO !?
they just want some problem solved, and don't care much about the current "trends", "buzzwords" or whatever there is in 2020 which may be of interest for "it-nerds" than "getting things done" and move on with their core-business :)
just my 0.02€
Re: Ask HN: Should I be learning PHP in 2020?
#10PHP is not going away anytime soon. The only downside, it has no use beyond web. If you're new to programming, no. Better focus on Python, Node, Go, Java, or even JavaScript. There's still a strong and in certain niches growing demand for PHP, but definitely not suitable for a beginner, as lots of that work involves maintaining and / or upgrading legacy code.
I see where you are coming from, but I have a built a few big XML processing tools in PHP that run quite happily on the command line. Having said that, it was a few years back, and I tend to reach for Python for text/XML processing these days...