Do you think PHP is a dead language? (Currently learning it)

I write this comment to subscribe to the rant.

@just-basic-user but share your opinion. I want to know xD

@Zero6033 Well, currently I am learning PHP 7(I am more into ASP.NET and am very happy about the cross platform net.core).
PHP is a lot harder than ASP.NET and not the most secure language but a lot of people know and use it.

New study material xD @just-basic-user

Even though some of us don't like it cause of wordpress its far from dead. Wordpress would have to drop popularity along with around 100 php host would need to go out of business.

Well, when I first started to get into backend, I didn't really know anything, so I first googled what everyone else will do (how to make a social networking site) and what popped was php. At that time (3-4 years ago) it was quite a thing. The two major technologies were ASP.NET and PHP (Node.js wasn't that popular). I choose PHP, but after an year or so I got to like C# quite more. Today I would either go with .NET/.NET Core MVC or Node.js.
They all have their advantages and disadvantages, but I think it all comes down to the library or syntax of the language.

Edit:
I totaly forgot about python. Google uses that...

@Mitiko I tried learning node.js but couldn't wrap my brain around it because I see it as plain JavaScript since I have worked mostly in the front end. I'm learning php to grasp the concept a bit better.

I don't think PHP is dead or dying. It's one of the most used languages, a lot of sites are written in PHP and it simply can't go away over night. It's also one of the easiest languages to learn (in my opinion) and there's still demand for PHP-developers. There's a lot of good stuff happening with PHP 7 optimizations and frameworks like Laravel so I don't think it hurts learning it :)

Learn it, but avoid it.
Learn it to avoid it.

@Zero6033 Then go for .net, it really teaches you the concept of OOP and big projects with big datasets, though i don't recommend it for smaller projects. Node.js is more of an freely typed library (because of js) and is better for real time applications (socket.io).

@Torbuntu Really? Wow... that takes me back... 18 whole years...

Far from dead I would say, considering how many sites and web apps use it (apart from fucking WordPress).
Contrary to some people, I love PHP to bits !

@max-dng We should unite and destroy WordPress

Yep dead language.

Yes, definitely.

We need an alternative to destroy "it".

Its in the top 3 of most requested backend languages so no its not dead.

I can see why people dislike it. No consistency with naming of functions.
For some things I understamd amother language might be faster but for most projects you dont really need that speed.

I have disliked PHP until I learned about Laravel. It doesnt feel like PHP to me anymore.

Should you learn it? Yes
Should you use frameworks? Yes
Should you avoid it? Depends on the project and PHP version. Use 7.x. Dont use 5.x.

Let me say that: Eventhough PHP is an abomination of a language, a patchwork of plain stupid ideas, a hack-together of well stirred puke, a pile of utter nonsense, it is far from dead. I think it would be more believable that Java would die before PHP would have come close to death.
All standard webhosts offer PHP as main support.
But before PHP dies, I hope backend Javascript and it's fanboys find their eternal peace first.

To be more helpful: PHP is a good and powerful language, if you fucking know it's depths, traps and ugly parts. If you master them, you can write stable, good-looking and maintainable code.
BUT there are TOO MANY FUCKING NOOBS that use PHP.
Dear lord (the one and only spaghetti monster) forgive me, boy have I seen ugly fucking PHP code from people who use copy paste instead of brain.php.

Ranter out.
Sry if I have disturbed anybody's peaceful and flowery thoughts. 😉

@qbasic16 coulnt have said it better

Just learn go

Although PHP is capable of creating RESTful web services, I don't think it should be used for this. It was created as a server side dynamic HTML renderer, a purpose it's wasn't really good at in the first place, and now in a modern web app world it has attempted to adapt to a separated front end/back end paradigm, and comes off like using an old CRT television to watch Blu Ray movies trough a series of converters.

Honestly I think most PHP developers refuse to acknowledge that they backed the wrong horse and there is no need for PHP anymore. It's a one trick pony that hasn't done anything new in years, but people continue to flock to it because it's easy, despite the fact that the language doesn't really lend itself to writing good modular code. But hey, that's just my opinion. If you like it, use it.

@zarkopafilis yeah golang is my language of choice

@deusprogrammer while i agree php isn't the best option available anymore. The majority of cheap/managed hosting is php hosting. So even though i agree about alot of devs backing the wrong horse, that horse has a big jumpstart

having been a PHP developer for the past 10 years, i can’t see it dying any time soon.

it’s a horrible language in terms of poor .. well lack of standards anyway and a pitfall of inconsistent functions and classes. but it’s greatest fault isn’t the language however.

PHP can be used, in the right hands for major REST / SOAP APis and major web platforms and ecommerce sites, unfortunately wordpress is one of those 😰

it is extremely easy to deploy to any host running windows or *nix.
you can build CLI tools with it.

but with great power comes great responsibility.

PHP shouldn’t be a first language, i discourage people to learn it first. you need to have a good understanding of code standards and how to work you you application into reusable and maintainable code, so you don’t write hunks of shit 10 miles long and call your self a developer, your not.

i would suggest learning C# or Java prior to PHP so you don’t fall down the wordpress rabbit hole!

@just-basic-user PHP is definitely not harder than .NET. Unless you're referring to the non-intuitive ways to call methods and stuff. Oh, sorry, FUNCTIONS.

PHP is much easier. Scaling on it kinda sucks though, and frameworks that are supposed to help you are very shitty if you try to do anything else but stitch existing pieces together (through composer). But PHP itself? PHP is easy as pie.

Is it dead? No way. And not any time soon. People point to NodeJS, saying that if you already write JS for frontend, why not use it for backend. I find the idea a bit disturbing, especially now when I want to pour some gasoline on NodeJS and burn it with hell fire. I don't think JS is going in the right direction. Latest submissions to ES are stupid, existing language features are poor, its infrastructure is flimsy, it has dependency hell, callback hell, and all kinds of hells, and nothing is being done to solve all that. It just gets deeper.

@C0D4 if it's as horrible as you say...why use it? I'm sure a pro lumberjack could chop down a tree with safety scissors, but why not use a chainsaw? Or in the case of web services, something that is designed for the job instead of using a disgusting cludge that was never designed with such things in mind?

People love to shit on Java, but show me another language with the maturity, scalability, usability and maintainability of Java and Java EE for writing web services. I used PHP for years before I moved to JavaEE, Spring and Groovy/Grails...and PHP is just hot garbage in comparison. And anything that attempts to make PHP good for writing web services is just building on that garbage.

Its not as much of a dead language (fuck Wordpress) but Its definitely not one worth learning as a starter language. It is known for the ridiculous style of programming it teaches you.

The hate in this comments.

@deusprogrammer
PHP is a poor language for a noob/nooblet to start with as it doesn’t teach you best practises or any standards. it will however let you write any incoherent mess and attempt with all its might to execute it, this is its greatest fault and why we have wordpress devs.

On the other hand, once you get yourself into a good habit of writing clean code and enforcing good standards or hopefully using the PSR’s you can create clean and maintainable code that can be deployed in almost any environment ( minus the handful of pitfalls you may jump through )

as for using a language for something it wasn’t designed for, my exact feelings for node.js and the likes.
javascript is for front end, and yet here we are using it for full stack.

languages grow to do a lot more then they were born or conceptualised to do which is great and horrifying at the same time.

Learn PHP is good thing. PHP popularity is reduced but not died. Frameworks like Laravel, Cake PHP, Symphony, Zend maintain language standards and make developers keep alive. So learning a new language it's always refresh you.

But language hasn't designed for any other propose, it built only for web apps. So don't expect more than that.

While working on big web apps, easily you'll reach language's max limitations. That's why people start hating it.

It needs to die..

You guys have been extremely helpful. Thank you for the input.

No try get a backend job that doesn't require PHP its unlikely as like 90%(no research done on that statistic) of companies use it.

@qbasic16 all the up votes for you from a php veteran

@deusprogrammer I like it because it's my fallback, because lots of businesses want a determined expert to unfuck the decaying codebase at the jugular of their income and can't afford to hire a small army or engineers to first comprehend it and then rewrite it from scratch...

...so it's more that many employers can't afford to let go than that I am clinging to it.

Also, I can roll out apps with it fast because I have logs of experience, whereas I'm more likely to make mistakes while I learn Python, react or node.

There's nothing wrong with it IF (big if) you understand the stack all the way down to your OS, Webserver, database; you write it clean or have a spec, a roadmap to keep technical debt payed off, don't go overboard rushing devs with new features.

You're not wrong though, it's in a sad state; it's just a place I'm very well adapted to and we'll prepared to make a livelihood

I love to work with PHP (one of my fav languages) and I think it's far from dead. And to the people who say it's insecure, that, for a big part also depends on how you program imo. My first c++ program was insecure as fuck but solely because I had no clue how to program securely in that language!

This is the perfect example of why PHP is seen as bad language.

https://pastebin.com/sVCV3Tic

i would probably murder a team member if i ever saw that in a project i handle.

At the end of the day its the Developers responsibility to do the correct thing and not the language, mind you no self respected developer would ever write something remotely close to this shit.

Although it wouldn't hurt at times for the language to enforce some standards for case in point.

@C0D4 finding the worst piece of code in the human existence doesnt show me why a language is dead. Only that the developer is dead because of the next maintainer of his/her code.

You can say what you want but PHP is still im the top 3 most requested backend language.

And even someone who doesnt know PHP yet knows how to make this code better. Please give some valid arguments next time.

@Codex404
you might want to re-read this rants comments.
i have been defending PHP the whole time.

PHP isn’t dying, however the “developers” that write shit like the above link may.

@C0D4 ah my bad, reread your comment as well and missed a few words before (just woke up)

It is one of the most used languages on the planet and far from dead. It is also evolving and fixing past design decissions.

To be honest. There is a lot of horrible code out there. I work as a php/Java dev at work with a lot of frontend work involved and the most horrible codebase we have is in php.

But it is also the most enjoyable one to work with that I have. Php grows with you, if you become a good php dev then it will put you on a other level. And with the advent of swoole the thing fucking flies, php7 is alteady amazingly fast. There are good practices to be used and current standards that make it easier to deal with. It is also a very simple language to wrap your head around with

Also, wordpress pays a fuckload of money if you are good and know what you are doing.

@PonySlaystation brother you hit the nail right in the head.....i have seen some shit too....