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Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

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Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#31

Post by johntdaly »

As an ex PHP developer, I don’t think it will ever go away. There is just way to much software that was written in PHP (e-commerce, blogs, CMS systems, Nextcloud/ownCloud, …) that isn’t going away.

PHP isn’t something I ever want to touch again (its libs are wonky and I dislike the syntax choices of the last years) but the execution model was sort of nice before the frameworks (an entry point with a clean state you can work yourself through).

The statistics are a bit misleading though. Just because 80% of the sites run PHP in some way doesn’t mean there are that many Jobs. A lot of the work with PHP world is not necessarily going to be PHP work (a lot of HTML, JavaScript and Plugin configuration) and there is complexity in learning your way around a system well enough to build plugins. The jump from beginner to expert has become harder for a new PHP programmer because the real programming is hidden behind a wall of already existing code that just needs to be installed, configured and customized.

I’m glad I got out when I did because I get to actually program APIs and Single Page Apps rather than just being a glorified PHP webpage mechanic.

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#32

Post by capableweb »

daneel_w wrote: post #19

I'm surprised nobody have linked the infamous "a fractal of bad design" article yet. It's particularly popular with people who have never written a line of PHP in their lives.

Also very popular with people who do write PHP for a living.

Did a quick skim again and seems a lot of the complaints are outdated by now, but probably no hope to see the author to update their rant.

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#34

Post by godojo »

0x0nyandesu wrote: post #7
easton wrote: post #5

I'm curious how this changes if you remove PHP being used for WordPress (where the people using it probably didn't choose it). Do lots of companies still choose PHP for brand new projects? I know Facebook has a dialect they still use, but you don't hear much about it anymore.

PHP is my bread and butter. Yes there are still shops that use it. It doesn't really deserve the bad rap.

The bad rap was probably due to older versions. I used to program PHP in a professional setting (quite a while ago) and it basically interchangeable as any other system script (bash) executed by a parent http server process.

The language itself at the time was mostly useful because you could execute a script made of HTML (or anything really) with some embedded magic tags interpreted as PHP instead of the opposite where you had to do some sort of template engine.

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#35

Post by mjburgess »

We should distinguish between applications developed in PHP, from installations of apps which happen to be developed in PHP.

I suspect one would see the former drop off a cliff, whilst the latter will always be quite high -- due to first-mover effects.

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#36

Post by daneel_w »

formerly_proven wrote: post #16
qsort wrote: post #11

How did Ruby increase that much lately? Also, I'm surprised Python isn't more popular. 1% is (comparatively) tiny for a language that popular.

How would you tell a given page was generated by some Python or Ruby webframework? There aren't any headers these use (like PHP usually does), so you'd have to look for more subtle cues like the name of session cookies or perhaps patterns in the way static files are addressed. The same goes for pretty much everything on that list which isn't PHP or .NET.

It swings that way for PHP as well. Several large PHP frameworks don't report PHP in the literal sense in the response headers.

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#37

Post by minimaul »

easton wrote: post #5

I'm curious how this changes if you remove PHP being used for WordPress (where the people using it probably didn't choose it). Do lots of companies still choose PHP for brand new projects? I know Facebook has a dialect they still use, but you don't hear much about it anymore.

Yep. My employer is a mix of PHP and JS.

PHP 8 for our API, JS for the app that consumes it - sharing code both server-side and client-side.

It works really well for us.

Development on a modern version of PHP with a framework like Symfony or Laravel is so very different to development on old PHP5 versions.

edit: PHP 7.x and 8 let you do things like:

- no automatic type conversions

- typed function parameters and return types

- typed object properties

- named parameters

All of these are little niceties but they add up to making it fantastically easier to avoid stupid mistakes that used to be common with PHP.

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#38

Post by AzzieElbab »

jegea wrote: post #25

I think this shows how much HN is a bubble in itself. Most discussions here happen around new/exciting/cool/weird technology. And don't get me wrong, I love those discussions! That's why I come here! But reality outside of this bubble is people building and maintaining web apps as efficiently as possible and PHP hasn't stopped being very efficient. On the contrary, it's getting better with time. Interestingly enough,…

It is not about efficiency , it is about legacy. You can count number of Perl scripts out there and conclude that Perl is still the most popular scripting/devops tool in the world

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#39

Post by mathattack »

johntdaly wrote: post #31

As an ex PHP developer, I don’t think it will ever go away. There is just way to much software that was written in PHP (e-commerce, blogs, CMS systems, Nextcloud/ownCloud, …) that isn’t going away. PHP isn’t something I ever want to touch again (its libs are wonky and I dislike the syntax choices of the last years) but the execution model was sort of nice before the frameworks (an entry point with a clean state you c…

Good point on jobs vs existing code base. It’s kind of like radio still has a lot of listeners but the amount of new stations isn’t rising as dramatically as other mediums.

Re: Usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

#40

Post by deweller »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #22
0x0nyandesu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP is my bread and butter. Yes there are still shops that use it. It doesn't really deserve the bad rap.

It's bearable since version 7, and unless they make it another Java in version 8 which will make it unbearable again, it's gonna be ok. Kids who want to seem cool have moved on to Go and NodeJS, so PHP is mainly left with people who got some experience and mostly know what they are doing, save for those who really just twiddle Wordpress until it sort of appears to do what they want it to do. I suspect that PHP's ulti…

PHP 8 has been out since November. It adds some typing but everything is optional. PHP has always been a loosely typed language. Converting to a strongly typed language would against the grain of the entire culture and history of PHP.

https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php https://www.php.net/releases/8.0/en.php

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