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PHP in 2022

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Re: PHP in 2022

#31

Post by viraptor »

mojuba wrote: post #9

Is it just me or PHP's evolution is a bit "too little, too late" for an almost 30-years old language? PHP is not a likable language but it's probably not going away any time soon. Its concept of "one endpoint is one script" is one of its biggest killer features that no other language has been able to deploy in such an accessible manner. Well, Perl and old-style CGI aside, of course. That, and also the fact that it ma…

> pretty much the only dynamic language in use today with ARC and not a GC

Python uses RC, with GC available but only used for cycles.

Re: PHP in 2022

#32

Post by f311a »

vaylian wrote: post #26
f311a wrote: post #12

It's still a language that's mainly used for web development, right? Modern websites in big companies require pretty complex backends that require data processing queues and other background activities. Can PHP compete with languages such as Go, Python or Ruby in the future?

Why shouldn't PHP be able to compete here? I personally prefer Python over PHP for stylistic reasons but I have no doubt that PHP is capable of doing the same things as Python, even if the syntax looks a bit more outdated.

Because it wasn't designed for long-running processes or data processing at first. It evolved a lot, but I don't see it outside of simple backends for websites.

Re: PHP in 2022

#34

Post by moring »

viraptor wrote: post #28
cletus wrote: post #20

I'm a fan of PHP and have been for years for several reasons: 1. Low barrier to entry; 2. Hard to leak resources since the model is to tear down everything after a request finishes; 3. Stateless API core which means the efforts of creating an environment for a request for (2) is extremely low. Compare this to, say, the bootstrap time for Python or Java (which is why those generally don't follow the request teardown m…

> Compare this to, say, the bootstrap time for Python or Java The bootstrap time for a request exists only in a web framework, not in the language. And since you can have the extremes of pure fastcgi or uwsgi, or full Django, you need a more specific comparison.

Java has a high bootstrap time for the JVM. PHP doesn't have that, but the "tear down everything" model might imply a high bootstrap time depending on the framework, because things need to be bootstrapped per request that are already there in Java.

Re: PHP in 2022

#37

Post by mschuster91 »

kijin wrote: post #22

Syntax sugar is nice. It helps PHP sidestep the age-old criticism about its crappy API, although the crappy API is still there if you want to use it. What's really great about PHP these days is the development environment. Composer is a rock-solid package manager. Most frameworks and important libraries are gravitating toward shared standards defined by PSRs. Thanks to those shared standards, the APIs are stable and…

> There's no colors/faker/left-pad drama.

Yet. Composer packages have the same attack surface as NPM packages, the only thing that is different is that there are (outside of frameworks like Drupal and Symfony) no automated post-install scripts that get executed during a "composer install".

The fundamental difference is that lots of what is popular in the NPM world isn't needed in the Composer world at all due to PHP's extensive stdlib (meaning, less people having to maintain trivialities like left-pad and thus less potential for people to get hacked/sell out/get burned out in frustration).

Furthermore, most highly popular PHP projects have extensive corporate, consulting or foundational backing - Symfony, Drupal, PHPUnit, Laravel, Typo3, MediaWiki, Wordpress to name the biggest players - and each of these provides to developers what the stdlib is missing, so there are strict QA and release procedures to prevent a repeat of the current colors/faker events.

Re: PHP in 2022

#38

Post by kijin »

cntainer wrote: post #21

I started my career in PHP ~15 years ago trying to do OOP in PHP 4.x. That was "fun". In the meantime I switched to other stacks but I've been keeping a distant eye on how PHP was evolving and I still am involved with PHP projects to a certain degree, though rarely at code level. I really appreciate the effort put into fixing most of the things I hated about the language, though at times it felt like the language and…

There are definitely parts of PHP and its ecosystem that have been trying to copy Java. On the flip side, PHP is quite similar to Java when it comes to its value proposition, so I can appreciate why the devs have chosen that path. Like Java, PHP is stable and slow-moving. It takes backward compatibility seriously, and it has a huge community. PHP is to small-time "webmasters" and lifestyle businesses what Java is to governments and large corporations.

If you want to build something once and get passive income out of it for the better part of a decade, PHP has your back. Pinboard is a prime example of this business model.

If you're a fast-moving startup who will replace your entire codebase every six months, you might be better served by JS.

Re: PHP in 2022

#40

Post by cies »

cntainer wrote: post #21

I started my career in PHP ~15 years ago trying to do OOP in PHP 4.x. That was "fun". In the meantime I switched to other stacks but I've been keeping a distant eye on how PHP was evolving and I still am involved with PHP projects to a certain degree, though rarely at code level. I really appreciate the effort put into fixing most of the things I hated about the language, though at times it felt like the language and…

> Why would I choose PHP when starting a greenfield project?

Because you don't know better. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Ruby + Rails is miles ahead of PHP + Laravel. If you want more static typing (which I currently believe is a good thing) I really like Kotlin (+ KTor or + Javalin). If you are okay without OO and like static typing Haskell + IHP is pretty complete. If you are okay with learning about low-level stuff, Rust + Actix is really nice.

All of this may require learning new things, and coming from PHP that's a good thing. PHP and JavaScript are not languages that help you become a better programmer. They are messy and lack important features (sum-types).

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