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I suspect this is driven by the fact that a boatload of small companies suddenly had to get their businesses online in a hurry. By number of websites and e-comm

I suspect this is driven by the fact that a boatload of small companies suddenly had to get their businesses online in a hurry. By number of websites and e-commcerce platforms for small businesses, PHP is massive. By amount of use in +$1M ARR established tech companies, it's miniscule. Covid no doubt drove a lot more of the former this year.

mtnGoat 6y ago
Can you provide evidence of this claim that profitable/large companies don't use PHP? Or just parroting unfounded php hate.
- coding_lobster 6y ago
  I wouldn't say it's unfounded but anecdotal. And I wouldn't necessarily call it "hate" either. PHP definitely isn't one of those technologies that you see often on job listings of major companies - sure they might use it for some things such as blogs but it's rarely part of the stack of their staple products. The question isn't whether they use it but to what extent and in what products.
  - AaronNewcomer 6y ago
    On a quick search of PHP skills wanted on LinkedIn jobs I found the following large companies looking for it: Apple, Cloudflare, Vimeo, Box, Slack, Tesla, Etsy, Wayfair, Shopify, Facebook, Etc
    - sroussey 6y ago
      Clearly WordPress and Magento based businesses. Add in Facebook, Weebly/Square, and you realize that PHP probably drives more page views and powers more domain named sites than any other.
      - spdionis 6y ago
        How are Vimeo and Slack Magento or Wordpress businesses? Etsy also most certainly does not primarily use those.
- wtracy 6y ago
  Facebook's codebase is overwhelmingly written in PHP. If the F in FAANG doesn't qualify, then I don't know what does.
  - nobleach 6y ago
    I know that a few years ago it was en vogue to say this but, hasn't HHVM diverged from off-the-shelf PHP? Facebook as a company has so many moving pieces written in so many different languages. Yes, the original codebase was a large PHP app. Last I heard, there was a decent amount of C++ and even some Haskell floating around.
  - plorkyeran 6y ago
    Facebook's been using Hack for close to a decade now. Hack still strongly resembles PHP, but it's taken a different direction from PHP 7 and HHVM is no longer intending to be an alternative PHP runtime (https://hhvm.com/blog/2017/09/18/the-future-of-hhvm.html https://hhvm.com/blog/2017/09/18/the-future-of-hhvm.html).
AaronNewcomer 6y ago
This is silly. Lots of large companies use php for their internal applications. I built a php based backend for one of the largest sellers on amazon, in php. That company is approaching $1B in annual revenue. Php allowed my team to move amazingly fast and deliver what the business needed very quickly. In e-commerce and dealing with Amazon specificity, rules and methods change monthly and you always have to be able to quickly pivot to remain competitive and I think php was a big factor in allowing this to happen.
- rococode 6y ago
  I'm curious, is there any particular aspect of PHP that helps you build things faster than you might be able to with other languages or frameworks?
  - chucky_z 6y ago
    It’s like Java but you can actually use it. It has no compile time, the development cycle is crazy fast, the stdlib is good for the web, every problem is solved so they’re all googleable, it has a good package manager now, great frameworks, good testing stuff, there’s a lot of positives atm
    - mekster 6y ago
      Concurrency is one thing not good for PHP. If a background task needs a lot of parallel work, I'd use node in that part.
      - chucky_z 6y ago
        I agree with you. As a counterpoint though, I worked somewhere that generated some of the heaviest and biggest reports of anywhere I’ve ever seen with a lot of concurrency and PHP handled the task fine. Node would have still been a better fit though :)
  - thdrdt 6y ago
    There are multiple reasons, but one I like most is how easy it is to deploy. And because you don't need build tools you can deploy it as easily years later. Also while developing you can just hit F5 or rerun a PHP script in your console compared to waiting for a build.
outime 6y ago
This aligns with my anecdotal experience. I started with PHP more than a decade ago and every company I've worked for (very large, large and medium-sized) has migrated away from it or never touched it. I don't see any sort of renaissance but if PHP has gotten really better as I read many times here (didn't bother to fact check as I abandoned it many years ago) then the market will speak. I don't see that happening yet in my experience.
Alex3917 6y ago
Also, most tech companies have presumably stopped hiring junior developers. So if you just taught yourself how to code and want to get a job as a developer, doing WordPress or Magento for some family business might be your best option right now.
- barrenko 6y ago
  I'm exactly in this basket. Most of the ads have been cut down to C#/Java and PHP shops (in my relatively small European market).
tootie 6y ago
Most of the SMBs are opting for platforms like Squarespace, Shopify, Hubspot which are proliferating. Building decent landing pages, lead gen, e-commerce are now push button.

mtnGoat 6y ago

Can you provide evidence of this claim that profitable/large companies don't use PHP? Or just parroting unfounded php hate.

coding_lobster 6y ago
I wouldn't say it's unfounded but anecdotal. And I wouldn't necessarily call it "hate" either. PHP definitely isn't one of those technologies that you see often on job listings of major companies - sure they might use it for some things such as blogs but it's rarely part of the stack of their staple products. The question isn't whether they use it but to what extent and in what products.
- AaronNewcomer 6y ago
  On a quick search of PHP skills wanted on LinkedIn jobs I found the following large companies looking for it: Apple, Cloudflare, Vimeo, Box, Slack, Tesla, Etsy, Wayfair, Shopify, Facebook, Etc
  - sroussey 6y ago
    Clearly WordPress and Magento based businesses. Add in Facebook, Weebly/Square, and you realize that PHP probably drives more page views and powers more domain named sites than any other.
    - spdionis 6y ago
      How are Vimeo and Slack Magento or Wordpress businesses? Etsy also most certainly does not primarily use those.
wtracy 6y ago
Facebook's codebase is overwhelmingly written in PHP. If the F in FAANG doesn't qualify, then I don't know what does.
- nobleach 6y ago
  I know that a few years ago it was en vogue to say this but, hasn't HHVM diverged from off-the-shelf PHP? Facebook as a company has so many moving pieces written in so many different languages. Yes, the original codebase was a large PHP app. Last I heard, there was a decent amount of C++ and even some Haskell floating around.
- plorkyeran 6y ago
  Facebook's been using Hack for close to a decade now. Hack still strongly resembles PHP, but it's taken a different direction from PHP 7 and HHVM is no longer intending to be an alternative PHP runtime (https://hhvm.com/blog/2017/09/18/the-future-of-hhvm.html https://hhvm.com/blog/2017/09/18/the-future-of-hhvm.html).

AaronNewcomer 6y ago

This is silly. Lots of large companies use php for their internal applications. I built a php based backend for one of the largest sellers on amazon, in php. That company is approaching $1B in annual revenue. Php allowed my team to move amazingly fast and deliver what the business needed very quickly. In e-commerce and dealing with Amazon specificity, rules and methods change monthly and you always have to be able to quickly pivot to remain competitive and I think php was a big factor in allowing this to happen.

rococode 6y ago
I'm curious, is there any particular aspect of PHP that helps you build things faster than you might be able to with other languages or frameworks?
- chucky_z 6y ago
  It’s like Java but you can actually use it. It has no compile time, the development cycle is crazy fast, the stdlib is good for the web, every problem is solved so they’re all googleable, it has a good package manager now, great frameworks, good testing stuff, there’s a lot of positives atm
  - mekster 6y ago
    Concurrency is one thing not good for PHP. If a background task needs a lot of parallel work, I'd use node in that part.
    - chucky_z 6y ago
      I agree with you. As a counterpoint though, I worked somewhere that generated some of the heaviest and biggest reports of anywhere I’ve ever seen with a lot of concurrency and PHP handled the task fine. Node would have still been a better fit though :)
- thdrdt 6y ago
  There are multiple reasons, but one I like most is how easy it is to deploy. And because you don't need build tools you can deploy it as easily years later. Also while developing you can just hit F5 or rerun a PHP script in your console compared to waiting for a build.

outime 6y ago

This aligns with my anecdotal experience. I started with PHP more than a decade ago and every company I've worked for (very large, large and medium-sized) has migrated away from it or never touched it. I don't see any sort of renaissance but if PHP has gotten really better as I read many times here (didn't bother to fact check as I abandoned it many years ago) then the market will speak. I don't see that happening yet in my experience.

Alex3917 6y ago

Also, most tech companies have presumably stopped hiring junior developers. So if you just taught yourself how to code and want to get a job as a developer, doing WordPress or Magento for some family business might be your best option right now.

barrenko 6y ago
I'm exactly in this basket. Most of the ads have been cut down to C#/Java and PHP shops (in my relatively small European market).

tootie 6y ago

Most of the SMBs are opting for platforms like Squarespace, Shopify, Hubspot which are proliferating. Building decent landing pages, lead gen, e-commerce are now push button.