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PHP in 2021

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Re: PHP in 2021

#101

Post by xcambar »

jalfresi wrote: post #92
theshrike79 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My question is: why would anyone want to start something new with PHP in 2021? Same reason as any, familiarity. Not all people, even in software, enjoy learning new stuff. PHP might be the only language they ever learned and it has paid their bills for over a decade. No point in learning anything new unless it's absolutely required. As long as major pieces of software are written in PHP, those people will have a st…

- shared nothing architecture - single threaded code execution context - copy files deploy I was a PHP developer for over 15 years and those three concepts do more to lower the barrier to entry than any other language I’ve come across, and are constantly underestimated in their power to enable developers to concentrate on the business logic of their program.

That's the answer.

It encompasses every aspect: familiarity, usability, low learning curve, low time to market, enablement, and, eventually, greater margins.

Re: PHP in 2021

#102

Post by o_m »

gusbremm wrote: post #12

I wish there was a nodejs equivalent to Laravel

There are multiple projects like this in beta now. It seems like the javascript community has become open for the idea of monoliths, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Re: PHP in 2021

#103

Post by xcambar »

ashton314 wrote: post #66

Before you call me a troll, know that I worked with PHP for two+ years maintaining both legacy codebases and writing new code with Laravel. My question is: why would anyone want to start something new with PHP in 2021? Is there anything that it does better than any other language/ecosystem? I feel like the community is full of (but not exclusively composed of—there are some gems like Caleb Porzio who write good stuff…

I don't think you're a troll, but I think you know your community well-enough to trick it into a clever karma-hoarding move ;)

Re: PHP in 2021

#104

Post by JamesDeepDown »

ashton314 wrote: post #66

Before you call me a troll, know that I worked with PHP for two+ years maintaining both legacy codebases and writing new code with Laravel. My question is: why would anyone want to start something new with PHP in 2021? Is there anything that it does better than any other language/ecosystem? I feel like the community is full of (but not exclusively composed of—there are some gems like Caleb Porzio who write good stuff…

Look at the abject failure of Discourse. If it had been written in PHP then it would have completely replaced all current forum software. But the devs there hate PHP and went for a modern stack which is all but impossible to install except for tech professionals.

In other words, they chose a tech stack which suited them as developers, and not which suited the end users of the software.

End users love PHP because you copy the files into a folder. That's why it's so popular. That fact that you are talking about architectural "elegance" shows how removed you are from understanding the needs of the end user.

Re: PHP in 2021

#105

Post by cardanome »

It is a great language to put food on the table.

Especially in Europe it is still the dominant backend language. If you want to have flexibility on where you work it is a good language to know.

You have the productivity of a scripting language but still great static analysis tools that help you out. It really fills a sweet spot that no other language does.

Yes, Node has Typescript but then you have a super slow compiler negating the scripting language benefits. With PHP I can change a file and see instant results. Also languages like Go make it hard to debug anything on an live server as it is all compiled.

PHP code is mostly boring. The coding style tends to be very pragmatic. Even bad beginner code runs great due to dead code elimination and the like. Shared nothing architecture makes understanding and debugging the system so much easier.

Hosting is simple and inexpensive. Beginner can just copy their files to an shared hoster and be done with it.

PHP is only a bad choice is you have really complex requirement and need a high level of reliability, which most Web projects don't. I think Haskell fills a good niche here. It is really underestimated. Also Elixir if you happen to build anything where you can play out its strength.

Re: PHP in 2021

#106

Post by Bellamy »

eric4smith wrote: post #14

I know PHP is really great (and always has been). But sh*t, there is soooo much bad, no, really really bad PHP code that lives out there. Isn't it?

With a background in Java, both have bad codebases that is impossible to understand and maintain. That's because both have bad developers.

Simple, but expensive solution: Rewrite.

PHP is not perfect, but it works, and gets better every year. So should the developers who use it, because it's a good choice usually.

Re: PHP in 2021

#107

Post by 0xy »

cardanome wrote: post #105

It is a great language to put food on the table. Especially in Europe it is still the dominant backend language. If you want to have flexibility on where you work it is a good language to know. You have the productivity of a scripting language but still great static analysis tools that help you out. It really fills a sweet spot that no other language does. Yes, Node has Typescript but then you have a super slow compi…

The elitists who constantly hound on PHP's deficiencies as if developers haven't heard about them for the last 20 years are the same types of people who build a fancy side project that never sees the light of day because it's massively over-engineered in some obscure flavor-of-the-month language.

Your customers don't care what's under the hood beyond your ability to provide value to them. If PHP lets you ship faster and get your product in the hands of consumers, it's a good language.

Re: PHP in 2021

#108

Post by joelbluminator »

JamesDeepDown wrote: post #104
ashton314 wrote: post #66

Before you call me a troll, know that I worked with PHP for two+ years maintaining both legacy codebases and writing new code with Laravel. My question is: why would anyone want to start something new with PHP in 2021? Is there anything that it does better than any other language/ecosystem? I feel like the community is full of (but not exclusively composed of—there are some gems like Caleb Porzio who write good stuff…

Look at the abject failure of Discourse. If it had been written in PHP then it would have completely replaced all current forum software. But the devs there hate PHP and went for a modern stack which is all but impossible to install except for tech professionals. In other words, they chose a tech stack which suited them as developers, and not which suited the end users of the software. End users love PHP because you…

You mean simply running Discourse (a Rails app) is so complicated no one wants to do it? And if it was simply PHP boom business would have been booming ? I find that a bit hard to believe.

Re: PHP in 2021

#109

Post by joelbluminator »

ksec wrote: post #74
ashton314 wrote: post #66

Before you call me a troll, know that I worked with PHP for two+ years maintaining both legacy codebases and writing new code with Laravel. My question is: why would anyone want to start something new with PHP in 2021? Is there anything that it does better than any other language/ecosystem? I feel like the community is full of (but not exclusively composed of—there are some gems like Caleb Porzio who write good stuff…

The first comment in this thread already answered your question. >I would say that Laravel is an extremely high quality framework (on par with and even in some ways better than Rails) that nobody should be ashamed to use. And add to that PHP both a language and its VM get way more improvement than Ruby.

How do you measure this improvement compared to Ruby? At least in Ruby/Rails case it's backed by Shopify, which isn't very far from being as big as Oracle (market cap wise). Shopify invests heavily into Rails and in Ruby. Other big companies are Stripe (Ruby only), Github etc. But Shopify is the big deal since it's becoming a FAANG stock as of late. Now for sure PHP has a big following, good companies based on it (though Facebook kinda forked away from it afaik) and people contributing to it but I wouldn't be so quick to say it's improving better or faster.

Re: PHP in 2021

#110

Post by emodendroket »

ipaddr wrote: post #79
emodendroket wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked Symfony but becoming a “PHP guy” looks like a terrible career move still. Also not a huge fan of the one data structure being both a dictionary and an array.

What stack do you recommend? Node/JS or GoLang or React, Java?

I am a fan of ASP.NET MVC. But honestly if you've used one MVC framework you've kind of used them all.
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