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I went on a rant, but didn't mean to. I don't have anything against PHP, it's got a valuable and relevant place on the the web. It's important to many people, a

I went on a rant, but didn't mean to. I don't have anything against PHP, it's got a valuable and relevant place on the the web. It's important to many people, and like you said you find it fun, which I think is important for our productivity as devs. However, I think this recurring misconceptions how easy PHP is to develop in needs to stop. PHP comes with a lot of complexities. Worst kind of complexity to learn: hidden complexity.

gregjor 5y ago
One person’s complexity is another person’s valuable job skill. PHP and Apache aren’t hard to setup and configure if you know how it works.
- spoiler 5y ago
  I completely agree that being able to navigate an ecosystem's complexity is a skill. I didn't mean to imply that other languages don't have complexities. All ecosystems come with their own boons and complexity issues (hidden or upfront). The thing I wanted to address is the general idea of "PHP is the simplest to develop in, it's just uploading a file" (paraphrasing) shouldn't be taken at face value, and that's why I pointed out some of the complexities when working with PHP that PHP developers tend to forget (or some ignore). But, because PHP is so easy to get started with, a lot of the complexity initially gets hidden away, and sometimes people learn about it the hard way. JavaScript used to be much the same, but it has gotten better in the recent years. Maybe PHP has gotten better in this aspect too, but I could be ignorant because I've not been keeping up with PHP as much
  - gregjor 5y ago
    With a hosting provider that already has PHP installed, you can simply upload a file to a folder and serve it over the web with no special expertise. PHP makes it easy for beginners and amateur programmers to get something working without knowing much. Because of the low-barrier to entry and simple hosting setup people have written a lot of crap PHP code over the years. I know, I see it and work with it. Amateurs and well-meaning power-users can get some web pages up and running easier with PHP than with almost anything else, so while inexperienced programmers can write bad code in any language a large number of them choose PHP. None of those facts mean PHP is not suitable for "real" development and "real" programmers. It is not obsolete or dying. A professional programmer who knows how to build production-quality web sites can get great results from PHP. That requires putting in the same time and effort needed to learn any other language and set of tools.
mgkimsal 5y ago
I can't think of a single in-use tech/language that does not have a lot of complexities. And by definition, these will almost certainly be 'hidden complexities' for someone coming in to that ecosystem. What's been useful about PHP (and many other stacks) is that the good ideas from other worlds usually get assimilated in over time. PHP is not always at the bleeding edge with respect to language development, but that's just fine. The PHP ecosystems often adopt/adapt useful ideas/techniques from other ecosystems relatively rapidly, and that's just fine too.
- spoiler 5y ago
  > I can't think of a single in-use tech/language that does not have a lot of complexities. And by definition, these will almost certainly be 'hidden complexities' for someone coming in to that ecosystem. You're 100% right. My original comment focuses on PHP because I was specifically addressing the "PHP is the easiest to develop in" idea. I realise that it might seem a bit too critical maybe because PHP was the only topic in it, but I didn't mean it to come off like that. Hopefully I redeemed PHP a little bit in the follow-up comment! :D At the end of the day: every ecosystem/language has its own "that shadowy place over there" :P
jbergens 5y ago
I think fun is important but I see nodejs and rails as equal to php in the easy and fun part. Maybe python too, have not used it enough. If we are talking about building large web applications then performance, maintainability and other things may start to be more important than fun and then c#, java, go and others can be really good solutions.

gregjor 5y ago

One person’s complexity is another person’s valuable job skill. PHP and Apache aren’t hard to setup and configure if you know how it works.

spoiler 5y ago
I completely agree that being able to navigate an ecosystem's complexity is a skill. I didn't mean to imply that other languages don't have complexities. All ecosystems come with their own boons and complexity issues (hidden or upfront). The thing I wanted to address is the general idea of "PHP is the simplest to develop in, it's just uploading a file" (paraphrasing) shouldn't be taken at face value, and that's why I pointed out some of the complexities when working with PHP that PHP developers tend to forget (or some ignore). But, because PHP is so easy to get started with, a lot of the complexity initially gets hidden away, and sometimes people learn about it the hard way. JavaScript used to be much the same, but it has gotten better in the recent years. Maybe PHP has gotten better in this aspect too, but I could be ignorant because I've not been keeping up with PHP as much
- gregjor 5y ago
  With a hosting provider that already has PHP installed, you can simply upload a file to a folder and serve it over the web with no special expertise. PHP makes it easy for beginners and amateur programmers to get something working without knowing much. Because of the low-barrier to entry and simple hosting setup people have written a lot of crap PHP code over the years. I know, I see it and work with it. Amateurs and well-meaning power-users can get some web pages up and running easier with PHP than with almost anything else, so while inexperienced programmers can write bad code in any language a large number of them choose PHP. None of those facts mean PHP is not suitable for "real" development and "real" programmers. It is not obsolete or dying. A professional programmer who knows how to build production-quality web sites can get great results from PHP. That requires putting in the same time and effort needed to learn any other language and set of tools.

mgkimsal 5y ago

I can't think of a single in-use tech/language that does not have a lot of complexities. And by definition, these will almost certainly be 'hidden complexities' for someone coming in to that ecosystem. What's been useful about PHP (and many other stacks) is that the good ideas from other worlds usually get assimilated in over time. PHP is not always at the bleeding edge with respect to language development, but that's just fine. The PHP ecosystems often adopt/adapt useful ideas/techniques from other ecosystems relatively rapidly, and that's just fine too.

spoiler 5y ago
> I can't think of a single in-use tech/language that does not have a lot of complexities. And by definition, these will almost certainly be 'hidden complexities' for someone coming in to that ecosystem. You're 100% right. My original comment focuses on PHP because I was specifically addressing the "PHP is the easiest to develop in" idea. I realise that it might seem a bit too critical maybe because PHP was the only topic in it, but I didn't mean it to come off like that. Hopefully I redeemed PHP a little bit in the follow-up comment! :D At the end of the day: every ecosystem/language has its own "that shadowy place over there" :P

jbergens 5y ago

I think fun is important but I see nodejs and rails as equal to php in the easy and fun part. Maybe python too, have not used it enough. If we are talking about building large web applications then performance, maintainability and other things may start to be more important than fun and then c#, java, go and others can be really good solutions.