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I wonder if most developers that trash on PHP for trivial issues like seen in this thread haven't been using it for many years, or had a bad experience (e.g. ma

I wonder if most developers that trash on PHP for trivial issues like seen in this thread haven't been using it for many years, or had a bad experience (e.g. maintaining a legacy app). Some developers live in a kind of technical vacuum where, I guess they assume, the technical features of their programming language are what makes the difference in the value of the business they're building. In reality, the difference is in how easy it is to hire developers, the package library, overall ecosystem and developer experience, or: how can I make a great product.

asdkjh345fd 6y ago
Some people simply have reasonable standards. I tried for years to hire a PHP dev. I never found a single one. I found tons of people who had PHP on their resume, and not a single one of them was anything close to competent. PHP only makes hiring easy if you don't care about the quality of work that gets done. I can hire a million PHP monkeys, but everyone who has the right combination of intelligence and conscientiousness to be a competent software developer moves on from PHP after 2 or 3 years as they discover what it is.
- ludamad 6y ago
  You can hire "good programmers" and ask them to write PHP - Facebook does
  - throwaway4715 6y ago
    Facebook, Slack, Etsy, the list goes on. In fact, I think all thosr companies are actually hiring right now, unlike many of those advanced non-PHP shops.
  - pdpi 6y ago
    Facebook writes Hack, which is nontrivially different from PHP, and those differences matter.
    - scurvy 6y ago
      I doubt that Facebook tries to hire Hack devs off the street. No one uses Hack except FB. They hire PHP developers and teach them Hack in boot camps. The point being, you can hire good php devs.
      - joelbluminator 6y ago
        Facebook probably just hires super bright developers, not PHP developers per se. Those developers can pick up Hack in a couple of months.
        flavious 6y ago
        Normally, bright developers acquire a new language* within a few weeks, if they already know the paradigm from another language. Hack is OOP, and so are many others, so I would expect a bright developer to learn hack in 2-3 weeks, not months. Heck, I just read the docs of hack for 2 hours, and I already got a good sense of what the language can do. I worked with PHP internals, and a bunch of other languages in my career. * as language we define the language, its syntax and semantics, not any other library or the ecosystem. And yes, the standard library is still just a library. Knowing a list of functions and parameters does not mean knowing a language.
        joelbluminator 6y ago
        Well Ruby is OOP, is it gonna be super easy for me to get a java web development job? All things being equal a hiring company will go for someone with 3 years java experience over my 8 years Ruby experience. Facebook has no choice since no one knows their language, but most other companies will hire someone with the particular experience of their stack if possible.
  - aganame 6y ago
    Many employers use php because it allows keeping salaries down, though. So your advice would not work for those.
    - ludamad 6y ago
      The parent post complained about the quality not salary level of PHP programmers, though. The parent wants a quality PHP programmer, you want to keep salaries down - there is an acceptable tradeoff, somewhere.
      - asdkjh345fd 6y ago
        The parent poster didn't complain about anything, he pointed out the flaw in the grandparent poster's claim.
  - asdkjh345fd 6y ago
    No, facebook doesn't. The good programmers facebook hires don't work on the legacy PHP code. They do stuff like sigma. Also, I am not describing a problem, I am pointing out that their perceived problem doesn't exist. If I can hire a good programmer and make them write PHP, I could also hire the good programmer and let them write in a tolerable language, so the mythical "its easy to find PHP devs and impossible to find anything else devs" claim is out the window.
- enz 6y ago
  Are you trying to hire vanilla PHP devs or framework PHP devs? In my previous company (based in Paris, FR) we had a very hard time getting skillful PHP devs, even if there were a lot of candidates.
ragnese 6y ago
I'm a PHP "hater", so take this for what it's worth. You are very close to implying that the language doesn't matter if you can hire developers and there are a lot of good packages in the ecosystem. Having worked on several PHP projects (Most being version 7.0+ and zero of them being older than 5.3), the languages is STILL full of gotchas, and it's a huge drag on productivity. I assert that this DOES matter. Even basic stuff like trying to use the default "array" as a dictionary has absolutely ridiculous issues like if you try to use a string as a key, but it is a string of digits. It will automagically convert your string to an int and totally F-up your dictionary. I've actually been bitten by that one. And it showed up in production, because I didn't know or care what the string keys might be. Who the hell would've guessed that behavior after working with non-broken languages before? Inb4 "That just means you're dumb. Just use SPL. You can write bad code in any language." I've used Symfony. It's good. I haven't used Laravel. I assume it's also good. I still don't know why you'd choose to start a project in PHP today when there are great libraries in many other languages that are not as broken as PHP. Honestly, PHP 7+ is not horrible, but it's also not better than anything else... In fact, the very best PHP code you can write today looks basically the same as the best Java code you could've written a decade ago.
- dubcanada 6y ago
  What are "string keys"?
  - chewmieser 6y ago
    Associative array or hashmap. Arrays indexed by strings instead of numbers.
    - dubcanada 6y ago
      Ohhhh I've never heard them called string keys before. Thanks.
  - ragnese 6y ago
    PHP arrays can be indexed by ints or strings (at the same time).
koheripbal 6y ago
Coming from Java, the one pet peeve I have is the automatic type conversion. I just find that I never really know what my variables are _really_ holding. It's one of those foundational issues that I just can't get over. ...but it's my personal problem - I don't hate PHP.
- tim_phpdev 6y ago
  Work as a PHP dev, in a PHP/JS shop. In all new work we require static typing on method parameters and defined return types. Of course, if your type is 'array' it could be an array of anything but we also try to avoid that and use collection classes. It honestly feels a lot like Java now, without the compile step.
  - isbjorn16 6y ago
    I do the same in Python with type hinting. It's not actual typing, but at least there are tools that can help call us on our dumbass bullshit. Edit: and by "our" dumbass bullshit, I mostly mean when we thoughtlessly return type T when we claimed we'd return type U
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    We do similar (strict_types, declare parameter and return types, etc), but don't go as far as the Java-style collection classes except where absolutely necessary. As a mostly-acceptable alternative, we just type hint as array and document the actual containing types in the phpdoc block and run phan for static analysis to catch any potential screwups. /** * Method for converting Foos into Bars * * @param Foo[] $foos * @return Bar[] */ function convertFoosToBars(array $foos): array { // ... } In theory this isn't perfect. In practice we haven't run into any issues yet.
techopoly 6y ago
I wonder how many developers hate PHP because one is just supposed to hate PHP. I'm sure there are many with well-thought-out reasoning though, like seen in this thread. It's useful to keep an open mind about things though. I'm probably more a PHP fan, but I can't say that I'm a huge fan of its programming style. It's much more enjoyable to me to churn out applications in .NET or in Ruby, but it's hard to argue with the speed at which I can develop in PHP or with the level of support online for doing so.
- fatbird 6y ago
  I think you're missing a third group of PHP haters that's actually a majority: those who've used PHP, sometimes extensively, and built up a backlog of "this is stupid" bits in their head about it. They don't have deeply reflective reasons or a strong theoretical basis for hating it, they've just suffered with it for a good while, found some better alternative, and are now sceptical that any amount of improvement will be able to outweigh the friction they "know" will be there if they try to come back. So the anti-PHP feeling for this group is broad but shallow. Here's what I think is interesting: JavaScript is here right now. Like PHP, it's incredibly popular, almost mandatory to know in some degreee, and using it for any length of time causes one to build up a catalog of "WTF?" and workarounds and "use this library instead" and a constant churn of "it's great if you use <some framework or conceptual approach> on top of it". I used PHP a lot, and found it quite pleasant with Laravel, but the latent pool of distaste means I'll never go back. I work heavily with JS now, and can feel that wide puddle of "why do I have to put up with this?" spreading, even while other parts are really good. I don't know how you overcome this, broadly. Perhaps it doesn't matter, because I think this group (and I'm part of it) blows with the wind more than most, and if the winds shift back, we'll probably come along.
  - techopoly 6y ago
    That's a really good point. Nothing is perfect, and frameworks are no different, so after awhile the friction points come to the fore. Also, I have a theory that with the more common languages, you obviously find a much broader user base of beginner-level programmers, or, worse, programmers who just don't care about quality, which translates to more dysfunctional code in the community in general. My coworker at one company did not have good things to say about PHP, but when he had to take over a PHP project of mine when I left the company, he said it was some of the most well-written PHP he's ever seen -- organized, easy to follow and modify, etc. He didn't even realize PHP could be written in an eloquent fashion. (Not to brag, I've written plenty of bad code too.) Point being that if all you see in a certain language is jumbled spaghetti code, it's easy to think of it as a bad language. A good programmer should be able to create eloquent code in any language. Edit: Realized after posting I may have sounded like I thought you were not a good programmer -- that's not what I was saying at all! You can write eloquent code and still be frustrated with what the framework or community forces upon you.
CommieBobDole 6y ago
I think this is probably an example of the larger tendency of people to overrate the importance of whatever it is they directly work with, and its effect on their workflow. Like a carpenter insisting that using a certain brand of hammer has an effect on the habitability of the resulting house. After years of using a lot of products and seeing which ones succeed and which ones fail, I question whether there's much of a connection between code quality and product success, assuming of course that the code isn't bad enough that it prevents the use of the product. Heck, I'm not even sure there's a strong correlation between basic product function and success, at least in the enterprise space; I've seen a number of successful products that barely even work. Seems like market positioning and sales are the bigger factor.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > I think this is probably an example of the larger tendency of people to overrate the importance of whatever it is they directly work with, and its effect on their workflow. Like a carpenter insisting that using a certain brand of hammer has an effect on the habitability of the resulting house. One brand of hammer causes RSI. This brand of hammer tends to bend nails unless they're made of titanium alloy at 80% higher cost. The houses built are basically fine, but they have quirks as a result of the builders trying to avoid having to use nails. You lose 10% of your workforce after every project to medical leave and burnout. Everything is fine because people keep buying houses (there's a shortage).
jrs95 6y ago
Not gonna lie my #1 complaint is that PHP jobs on average pay like shit in comparison to most other things. I don't want to work with it solely because it has no value on my resume. That being said the biggest argument for PHP is productivity and I just prefer Ruby + Rails for that. Honestly though I will say I find PHP more pleasant to work with than Python these days.
wnevets 6y ago
>I wonder if most developers that trash on PHP for trivial issues like seen in this thread haven't been using it for many years, or had a bad experience (e.g. maintaining a legacy app). I wouldn't be surprised if many of them don't even have that experience. I've found a lot of people just parrot whatever someone else wrote or said without much thought. The tribalism within the development community is approaching what you'll find with in gaming, sports and even politics.
pinopinopino 6y ago
>I wonder if most developers that trash on PHP for trivial issues like seen in this thread haven't been using it for many years, or had a bad experience (e.g. maintaining a legacy app). Think this is true. I am one of those php haters, although I wouldn't trash it. I worked with 4 and 5 and the transition between the two, so it is a while ago. I am not fondly remembering that time and have moved to other branches than web development to evade it. That being said, if I would go back to web development, I would have a look at it. Why not?
overgard 6y ago
Why would I ever want to use it again after php5? It might be better now but the competition is so much better than what php5 was that I have zero reason to revisit the language.

asdkjh345fd 6y ago

Some people simply have reasonable standards. I tried for years to hire a PHP dev. I never found a single one. I found tons of people who had PHP on their resume, and not a single one of them was anything close to competent. PHP only makes hiring easy if you don't care about the quality of work that gets done. I can hire a million PHP monkeys, but everyone who has the right combination of intelligence and conscientiousness to be a competent software developer moves on from PHP after 2 or 3 years as they discover what it is.

ludamad 6y ago
You can hire "good programmers" and ask them to write PHP - Facebook does
- throwaway4715 6y ago
  Facebook, Slack, Etsy, the list goes on. In fact, I think all thosr companies are actually hiring right now, unlike many of those advanced non-PHP shops.
- pdpi 6y ago
  Facebook writes Hack, which is nontrivially different from PHP, and those differences matter.
  - scurvy 6y ago
    I doubt that Facebook tries to hire Hack devs off the street. No one uses Hack except FB. They hire PHP developers and teach them Hack in boot camps. The point being, you can hire good php devs.
    - joelbluminator 6y ago
      Facebook probably just hires super bright developers, not PHP developers per se. Those developers can pick up Hack in a couple of months.
      - flavious 6y ago
        Normally, bright developers acquire a new language* within a few weeks, if they already know the paradigm from another language. Hack is OOP, and so are many others, so I would expect a bright developer to learn hack in 2-3 weeks, not months. Heck, I just read the docs of hack for 2 hours, and I already got a good sense of what the language can do. I worked with PHP internals, and a bunch of other languages in my career. * as language we define the language, its syntax and semantics, not any other library or the ecosystem. And yes, the standard library is still just a library. Knowing a list of functions and parameters does not mean knowing a language.
        joelbluminator 6y ago
        Well Ruby is OOP, is it gonna be super easy for me to get a java web development job? All things being equal a hiring company will go for someone with 3 years java experience over my 8 years Ruby experience. Facebook has no choice since no one knows their language, but most other companies will hire someone with the particular experience of their stack if possible.
- aganame 6y ago
  Many employers use php because it allows keeping salaries down, though. So your advice would not work for those.
  - ludamad 6y ago
    The parent post complained about the quality not salary level of PHP programmers, though. The parent wants a quality PHP programmer, you want to keep salaries down - there is an acceptable tradeoff, somewhere.
    - asdkjh345fd 6y ago
      The parent poster didn't complain about anything, he pointed out the flaw in the grandparent poster's claim.
- asdkjh345fd 6y ago
  No, facebook doesn't. The good programmers facebook hires don't work on the legacy PHP code. They do stuff like sigma. Also, I am not describing a problem, I am pointing out that their perceived problem doesn't exist. If I can hire a good programmer and make them write PHP, I could also hire the good programmer and let them write in a tolerable language, so the mythical "its easy to find PHP devs and impossible to find anything else devs" claim is out the window.
enz 6y ago
Are you trying to hire vanilla PHP devs or framework PHP devs? In my previous company (based in Paris, FR) we had a very hard time getting skillful PHP devs, even if there were a lot of candidates.

ragnese 6y ago

I'm a PHP "hater", so take this for what it's worth. You are very close to implying that the language doesn't matter if you can hire developers and there are a lot of good packages in the ecosystem. Having worked on several PHP projects (Most being version 7.0+ and zero of them being older than 5.3), the languages is STILL full of gotchas, and it's a huge drag on productivity. I assert that this DOES matter. Even basic stuff like trying to use the default "array" as a dictionary has absolutely ridiculous issues like if you try to use a string as a key, but it is a string of digits. It will automagically convert your string to an int and totally F-up your dictionary. I've actually been bitten by that one. And it showed up in production, because I didn't know or care what the string keys might be. Who the hell would've guessed that behavior after working with non-broken languages before? Inb4 "That just means you're dumb. Just use SPL. You can write bad code in any language." I've used Symfony. It's good. I haven't used Laravel. I assume it's also good. I still don't know why you'd choose to start a project in PHP today when there are great libraries in many other languages that are not as broken as PHP. Honestly, PHP 7+ is not horrible, but it's also not better than anything else... In fact, the very best PHP code you can write today looks basically the same as the best Java code you could've written a decade ago.

dubcanada 6y ago
What are "string keys"?
- chewmieser 6y ago
  Associative array or hashmap. Arrays indexed by strings instead of numbers.
  - dubcanada 6y ago
    Ohhhh I've never heard them called string keys before. Thanks.
- ragnese 6y ago
  PHP arrays can be indexed by ints or strings (at the same time).

koheripbal 6y ago

Coming from Java, the one pet peeve I have is the automatic type conversion. I just find that I never really know what my variables are _really_ holding. It's one of those foundational issues that I just can't get over. ...but it's my personal problem - I don't hate PHP.

tim_phpdev 6y ago
Work as a PHP dev, in a PHP/JS shop. In all new work we require static typing on method parameters and defined return types. Of course, if your type is 'array' it could be an array of anything but we also try to avoid that and use collection classes. It honestly feels a lot like Java now, without the compile step.
- isbjorn16 6y ago
  I do the same in Python with type hinting. It's not actual typing, but at least there are tools that can help call us on our dumbass bullshit. Edit: and by "our" dumbass bullshit, I mostly mean when we thoughtlessly return type T when we claimed we'd return type U
- nucleardog 6y ago
  We do similar (strict_types, declare parameter and return types, etc), but don't go as far as the Java-style collection classes except where absolutely necessary. As a mostly-acceptable alternative, we just type hint as array and document the actual containing types in the phpdoc block and run phan for static analysis to catch any potential screwups. /** * Method for converting Foos into Bars * * @param Foo[] $foos * @return Bar[] */ function convertFoosToBars(array $foos): array { // ... } In theory this isn't perfect. In practice we haven't run into any issues yet.

techopoly 6y ago

I wonder how many developers hate PHP because one is just supposed to hate PHP. I'm sure there are many with well-thought-out reasoning though, like seen in this thread. It's useful to keep an open mind about things though. I'm probably more a PHP fan, but I can't say that I'm a huge fan of its programming style. It's much more enjoyable to me to churn out applications in .NET or in Ruby, but it's hard to argue with the speed at which I can develop in PHP or with the level of support online for doing so.

fatbird 6y ago
I think you're missing a third group of PHP haters that's actually a majority: those who've used PHP, sometimes extensively, and built up a backlog of "this is stupid" bits in their head about it. They don't have deeply reflective reasons or a strong theoretical basis for hating it, they've just suffered with it for a good while, found some better alternative, and are now sceptical that any amount of improvement will be able to outweigh the friction they "know" will be there if they try to come back. So the anti-PHP feeling for this group is broad but shallow. Here's what I think is interesting: JavaScript is here right now. Like PHP, it's incredibly popular, almost mandatory to know in some degreee, and using it for any length of time causes one to build up a catalog of "WTF?" and workarounds and "use this library instead" and a constant churn of "it's great if you use <some framework or conceptual approach> on top of it". I used PHP a lot, and found it quite pleasant with Laravel, but the latent pool of distaste means I'll never go back. I work heavily with JS now, and can feel that wide puddle of "why do I have to put up with this?" spreading, even while other parts are really good. I don't know how you overcome this, broadly. Perhaps it doesn't matter, because I think this group (and I'm part of it) blows with the wind more than most, and if the winds shift back, we'll probably come along.
- techopoly 6y ago
  That's a really good point. Nothing is perfect, and frameworks are no different, so after awhile the friction points come to the fore. Also, I have a theory that with the more common languages, you obviously find a much broader user base of beginner-level programmers, or, worse, programmers who just don't care about quality, which translates to more dysfunctional code in the community in general. My coworker at one company did not have good things to say about PHP, but when he had to take over a PHP project of mine when I left the company, he said it was some of the most well-written PHP he's ever seen -- organized, easy to follow and modify, etc. He didn't even realize PHP could be written in an eloquent fashion. (Not to brag, I've written plenty of bad code too.) Point being that if all you see in a certain language is jumbled spaghetti code, it's easy to think of it as a bad language. A good programmer should be able to create eloquent code in any language. Edit: Realized after posting I may have sounded like I thought you were not a good programmer -- that's not what I was saying at all! You can write eloquent code and still be frustrated with what the framework or community forces upon you.

CommieBobDole 6y ago

I think this is probably an example of the larger tendency of people to overrate the importance of whatever it is they directly work with, and its effect on their workflow. Like a carpenter insisting that using a certain brand of hammer has an effect on the habitability of the resulting house. After years of using a lot of products and seeing which ones succeed and which ones fail, I question whether there's much of a connection between code quality and product success, assuming of course that the code isn't bad enough that it prevents the use of the product. Heck, I'm not even sure there's a strong correlation between basic product function and success, at least in the enterprise space; I've seen a number of successful products that barely even work. Seems like market positioning and sales are the bigger factor.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> I think this is probably an example of the larger tendency of people to overrate the importance of whatever it is they directly work with, and its effect on their workflow. Like a carpenter insisting that using a certain brand of hammer has an effect on the habitability of the resulting house. One brand of hammer causes RSI. This brand of hammer tends to bend nails unless they're made of titanium alloy at 80% higher cost. The houses built are basically fine, but they have quirks as a result of the builders trying to avoid having to use nails. You lose 10% of your workforce after every project to medical leave and burnout. Everything is fine because people keep buying houses (there's a shortage).

jrs95 6y ago

Not gonna lie my #1 complaint is that PHP jobs on average pay like shit in comparison to most other things. I don't want to work with it solely because it has no value on my resume. That being said the biggest argument for PHP is productivity and I just prefer Ruby + Rails for that. Honestly though I will say I find PHP more pleasant to work with than Python these days.

wnevets 6y ago

>I wonder if most developers that trash on PHP for trivial issues like seen in this thread haven't been using it for many years, or had a bad experience (e.g. maintaining a legacy app). I wouldn't be surprised if many of them don't even have that experience. I've found a lot of people just parrot whatever someone else wrote or said without much thought. The tribalism within the development community is approaching what you'll find with in gaming, sports and even politics.

pinopinopino 6y ago

>I wonder if most developers that trash on PHP for trivial issues like seen in this thread haven't been using it for many years, or had a bad experience (e.g. maintaining a legacy app). Think this is true. I am one of those php haters, although I wouldn't trash it. I worked with 4 and 5 and the transition between the two, so it is a while ago. I am not fondly remembering that time and have moved to other branches than web development to evade it. That being said, if I would go back to web development, I would have a look at it. Why not?

overgard 6y ago

Why would I ever want to use it again after php5? It might be better now but the competition is so much better than what php5 was that I have zero reason to revisit the language.