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100% THIS! There is a reason so many products and platforms - like WordPress, which powers so many blogs on the internet - were built leveraging PHP: productivi

100% THIS! There is a reason so many products and platforms - like WordPress, which powers so many blogs on the internet - were built leveraging PHP: productivity/getting stuff done! I would add that i'm not only implying that conventional developers gain productivity...but that also that PHP empowered - yes empowered - folks who may not be "real" developers, and gave them a tool/platform to participate on the production (not only consumer) side of the greater web.

emteycz 5y ago
I always thought the reason was that nearly every webhosting offers it, even though it has serious warts.
- mxuribe 5y ago
  Oh yeah, i agree that making PHP or other platforms more widely available helps them get more adopted. But i would have to guess that web hosting providers either were responding to customers requests to run PHP (because said customers felt they could do more), or these providers believed that php was good enough to offer to their customers because it empowered their customers but was not too much of headache to support. I say "not too much" because as noted, php has its warts. But even still if i put my business hat on, i would guess that a business would not purposefully make a platform available that is so bad which would create more work - hence tech support - that it would lessen or do away with any profit margin. In other words, if php were really that bad, web host companies - especially the low cost ones - would definitely not provide such a service because the constant tech support work would kill their profit margins...Full disclosure: i have never been a web host provider company (other than, small amounts of work in setting up web environments for my consulting clients)...so only someone in that industry could confirm/deny my theory.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    As a former small-time webhoster, I ran PHP because it was the easiest to run, but that doesn't mean it was the best app platform or the easiest to develop with. Making Ruby or Python or Java hosting was out of reach back then (without Docker and other niceties of today).
klysm 5y ago
There’s also a reason a ton of those applications built on php are terrible to use and get crushed under their own weight.
- mxuribe 5y ago
  I do not disagree. In fact, going outside the context of tech, sometimes democratizing inventions for the lay people is great in one area, and terrible in other perspectives. One example could be the invention of the automobile which - at least in the U.S. - empowered so many people (and commerce), but it also enabled folks to do very foolish things...to the detriment of so many, many auto-related deaths every year. So, back to technology...yes, i like me some PHP, but it is not lost on me that in the hands of the less qualified (or maybe folks who know, but simply do not care), there could be significant (and widespread) downsides. ;-)

emteycz 5y ago

I always thought the reason was that nearly every webhosting offers it, even though it has serious warts.

mxuribe 5y ago
Oh yeah, i agree that making PHP or other platforms more widely available helps them get more adopted. But i would have to guess that web hosting providers either were responding to customers requests to run PHP (because said customers felt they could do more), or these providers believed that php was good enough to offer to their customers because it empowered their customers but was not too much of headache to support. I say "not too much" because as noted, php has its warts. But even still if i put my business hat on, i would guess that a business would not purposefully make a platform available that is so bad which would create more work - hence tech support - that it would lessen or do away with any profit margin. In other words, if php were really that bad, web host companies - especially the low cost ones - would definitely not provide such a service because the constant tech support work would kill their profit margins...Full disclosure: i have never been a web host provider company (other than, small amounts of work in setting up web environments for my consulting clients)...so only someone in that industry could confirm/deny my theory.
- emteycz 5y ago
  As a former small-time webhoster, I ran PHP because it was the easiest to run, but that doesn't mean it was the best app platform or the easiest to develop with. Making Ruby or Python or Java hosting was out of reach back then (without Docker and other niceties of today).

klysm 5y ago

There’s also a reason a ton of those applications built on php are terrible to use and get crushed under their own weight.

mxuribe 5y ago
I do not disagree. In fact, going outside the context of tech, sometimes democratizing inventions for the lay people is great in one area, and terrible in other perspectives. One example could be the invention of the automobile which - at least in the U.S. - empowered so many people (and commerce), but it also enabled folks to do very foolish things...to the detriment of so many, many auto-related deaths every year. So, back to technology...yes, i like me some PHP, but it is not lost on me that in the hands of the less qualified (or maybe folks who know, but simply do not care), there could be significant (and widespread) downsides. ;-)