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Why are y'all arguing about this when you already learned like 20% of php by reading the OP. Learning enough of a high level scripting language like php to be a

Why are y'all arguing about this when you already learned like 20% of php by reading the OP. Learning enough of a high level scripting language like php to be able to be useful and productive in it is not some huge time sink, it's a few dozen hours of reading docs and tinkering

echelon 5y ago
Opportunity cost. Those "few dozen hours" reading PHP docs and tinkering could also be used to learn Python, Ruby, or Javascript, each of which are almost certainly better choices with broader applicability and more modern ergonomics. Python gets you web backend + ML, Javascript gets you web backend + web frontend. Ruby gets you a multi-paradigm language with nice ergonomics and cats. PHP gets you job offers customizing Drupal and Wordpress websites. If you already know a "scripting language most popularly used for websites", then you could choose to pick up Rust, Nim, Go, Swift, or Kotlin instead. It's much better to have a new kind of tool in your belt than a second hammer. The world is full of so many choices. PHP has a lot of incredibly compelling alternatives. Unless your job demands PHP, you're probably better off looking elsewhere.
- aliswe 5y ago
  Not that I code in PHP anymore, and I havent for years (felt like I had to say that). But PHP is a quite nice language with a lot less ceremony than many other languages. Especially nowadays as the article says. Go make a Wordpress site!
- JoshuaDavid 5y ago
  I mean if you tinker around with programming languages a lot, odds are pretty good that you have also spent a few dozen hours on Python, and another few dozen on Ruby, and it's probably pretty hard to avoid spending dozens of hours mucking about with JS even if you don't like learning new languages just by virtue of it being necessary for writing web stuff or scraping stuff off existing webpages. So yeah. Don't make PHP your first language. Probably not your second either. But if you've played with Python, and learned to write the simplest and clearest thing that can possibly work, if you've worked in C, and decided that's as close to the bare metal as you ever want to get, if you've learned enough Java to know when to use the SeriousBusinessFactoryProxyInterface, if Haskell has made you realize that programming is really just math... then sure, learn you some PHP, write a toy web project and discover that the simple things really can be simple. I still don't know of any stacks where it's easier to write a simple, low maintenance side project that will stay up for years without issue, where multiple projects can share a $5 / month VPS, than the LAMP stack.
- mickael-kerjean 5y ago
  > PHP has a lot of incredibly compelling alternatives There's no alternative to dropping a file on a LAMP server that goes with almost 0 maintenance for price that goes to almost 0 with 0 downtime whenever you make a change. PHP is my tool of choice whenever I need to create an simple endpoint but don't want to deal with the hassle of running and monitor a full blown application. At best, the alternative to that is AWS Lambda but that's a wall garden in itself > then you could choose to pick up ..... better to have a new kind of tool in your belt than a second hammer. Different tools for different job
- leonk 5y ago
  > PHP gets you job offers customizing Drupal and Wordpress websites I get that there's a lot of legacy PHP sites, that you could end up finding yourself working on. But there are still plenty of new Drupal and Wordpress sites being built. You could also say that building a site with these tools as akin to "customising", as a lot of what you're doing is configuration rather than coding (but I would say sometimes JS + NPM is pretty similar). There are still opportunities to push yourself with coding, with some fairly complex Drupal sites being built.
lgessler 5y ago
The core language itself and stdlibs, sure, it'd take just several dozen hours to pick it up. That goes for any high-level, C-family programming language around today, really. Can you do that and be nearly as productive in PHP (or any other language) as you are in your current daily use language? No: you need to invest in learning common design patterns, the library ecosystem, and tooling in order to be productive at a high professional level, and that is a task that takes longer and arguably never even really ends. Putting down real roots in a programming language is a large investment.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vegai_ 5y ago
PHP has a lot of quirks that have to be learned so that they can be avoided. It's a bit of a time sink in that way, and the sort of time sink that doesn't accumulate new skills that could be applied elsewhere.

echelon 5y ago

Opportunity cost. Those "few dozen hours" reading PHP docs and tinkering could also be used to learn Python, Ruby, or Javascript, each of which are almost certainly better choices with broader applicability and more modern ergonomics. Python gets you web backend + ML, Javascript gets you web backend + web frontend. Ruby gets you a multi-paradigm language with nice ergonomics and cats. PHP gets you job offers customizing Drupal and Wordpress websites. If you already know a "scripting language most popularly used for websites", then you could choose to pick up Rust, Nim, Go, Swift, or Kotlin instead. It's much better to have a new kind of tool in your belt than a second hammer. The world is full of so many choices. PHP has a lot of incredibly compelling alternatives. Unless your job demands PHP, you're probably better off looking elsewhere.

aliswe 5y ago
Not that I code in PHP anymore, and I havent for years (felt like I had to say that). But PHP is a quite nice language with a lot less ceremony than many other languages. Especially nowadays as the article says. Go make a Wordpress site!
JoshuaDavid 5y ago
I mean if you tinker around with programming languages a lot, odds are pretty good that you have also spent a few dozen hours on Python, and another few dozen on Ruby, and it's probably pretty hard to avoid spending dozens of hours mucking about with JS even if you don't like learning new languages just by virtue of it being necessary for writing web stuff or scraping stuff off existing webpages. So yeah. Don't make PHP your first language. Probably not your second either. But if you've played with Python, and learned to write the simplest and clearest thing that can possibly work, if you've worked in C, and decided that's as close to the bare metal as you ever want to get, if you've learned enough Java to know when to use the SeriousBusinessFactoryProxyInterface, if Haskell has made you realize that programming is really just math... then sure, learn you some PHP, write a toy web project and discover that the simple things really can be simple. I still don't know of any stacks where it's easier to write a simple, low maintenance side project that will stay up for years without issue, where multiple projects can share a $5 / month VPS, than the LAMP stack.
mickael-kerjean 5y ago
> PHP has a lot of incredibly compelling alternatives There's no alternative to dropping a file on a LAMP server that goes with almost 0 maintenance for price that goes to almost 0 with 0 downtime whenever you make a change. PHP is my tool of choice whenever I need to create an simple endpoint but don't want to deal with the hassle of running and monitor a full blown application. At best, the alternative to that is AWS Lambda but that's a wall garden in itself > then you could choose to pick up ..... better to have a new kind of tool in your belt than a second hammer. Different tools for different job
leonk 5y ago
> PHP gets you job offers customizing Drupal and Wordpress websites I get that there's a lot of legacy PHP sites, that you could end up finding yourself working on. But there are still plenty of new Drupal and Wordpress sites being built. You could also say that building a site with these tools as akin to "customising", as a lot of what you're doing is configuration rather than coding (but I would say sometimes JS + NPM is pretty similar). There are still opportunities to push yourself with coding, with some fairly complex Drupal sites being built.

lgessler 5y ago

The core language itself and stdlibs, sure, it'd take just several dozen hours to pick it up. That goes for any high-level, C-family programming language around today, really. Can you do that and be nearly as productive in PHP (or any other language) as you are in your current daily use language? No: you need to invest in learning common design patterns, the library ecosystem, and tooling in order to be productive at a high professional level, and that is a task that takes longer and arguably never even really ends. Putting down real roots in a programming language is a large investment.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

vegai_ 5y ago

PHP has a lot of quirks that have to be learned so that they can be avoided. It's a bit of a time sink in that way, and the sort of time sink that doesn't accumulate new skills that could be applied elsewhere.