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Its so easy to just get things done in php, even if its in an ugly way that you would never show to another developer. I built a saas for a fortune 1000 company

Its so easy to just get things done in php, even if its in an ugly way that you would never show to another developer. I built a saas for a fortune 1000 company after not programming for 5 years and never having done web development that ran several processes for them and they used it for a decade. It was the ugliest code in existence but it was so easy to just update and after it was up it just ran, forever. Deploying changes was just dragging over a file in Filezilla. Been thinking of building something new and considering learning node but PHP is right there. When I had to migrate to a new server I just copy - pasted the folders and away it went.

zelphirkalt 4y ago
> Deploying changes was just dragging over a file in Filezilla. Been thinking of building something new and considering learning node but PHP is right there. When I had to migrate to a new server I just copy - pasted the folders and away it went. These days most organizations will not tolerate just copying files over. There will be a process for testing the code and then stuff will probably be put in a container, to be even easier to run on another server. At that point the advantage of just sftp-ing files over disappears. It is no longer deemed safe enough to do so. Usually it is not the end of the world, if your website is down for a minute, but it does tarnish the public image of reliability, so organizations are not willing to put up with developers making a typo somewhere bringing down their website or causing at least an annoying error on the website. Instead of copying files over to another server, you would typically do some docker pull or other container engine pull some image or what have you. Then you would run that previously tested thing on the server.
- cutler 4y ago
  Not to meniton Kubernetes, AWS and Terraform. I don't think you really get PHP.
- larve 4y ago
  I think the point is that you can do both. Sometimes being able to yeet a PHP file to some PHP/wordpress hoster and get a project done in an afternoon is exactly what is needed, because even spending 2 or 3 days to set up a proper CI and deployment environment would be too much friction. There is a whole range of projects like that out in the wild, once you leave the realms of startups and big tech. It's about as easy to do "proper" deployment using bundles / containers / CICD / kubernetes / gitops with PHP as with any other stack. It's also possible to click a wordpress domain for $10/month and upload 2 php files and start making revenue. For a small business that is starting up, choosing between $10k of freelance work to get a nice github actions workflow on GKE + a monthly retainer of $2k for "maintenance" vs a one time $1k of freelance work to get a wordpress where you can configure the plugins and theme yourself is a no brainer. Many of those small business then grow much larger and reach a point where in hindsight you can say "should have gone with docker containers". But the original decision was not just perfectly valid, but probably the only reasonable one.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  Not talking about organizations, talking about a little group of people or a startup building something fast to get some cash flow or a poc. Php is there when you just need to get something done and live. I built my SaaS in 4 months with php, probably did 40 total hours of updates over the life of the application and it was used for a decade performing some relatively complex process management.

zelphirkalt 4y ago

> Deploying changes was just dragging over a file in Filezilla. Been thinking of building something new and considering learning node but PHP is right there. When I had to migrate to a new server I just copy - pasted the folders and away it went. These days most organizations will not tolerate just copying files over. There will be a process for testing the code and then stuff will probably be put in a container, to be even easier to run on another server. At that point the advantage of just sftp-ing files over disappears. It is no longer deemed safe enough to do so. Usually it is not the end of the world, if your website is down for a minute, but it does tarnish the public image of reliability, so organizations are not willing to put up with developers making a typo somewhere bringing down their website or causing at least an annoying error on the website. Instead of copying files over to another server, you would typically do some docker pull or other container engine pull some image or what have you. Then you would run that previously tested thing on the server.

cutler 4y ago
Not to meniton Kubernetes, AWS and Terraform. I don't think you really get PHP.
larve 4y ago
I think the point is that you can do both. Sometimes being able to yeet a PHP file to some PHP/wordpress hoster and get a project done in an afternoon is exactly what is needed, because even spending 2 or 3 days to set up a proper CI and deployment environment would be too much friction. There is a whole range of projects like that out in the wild, once you leave the realms of startups and big tech. It's about as easy to do "proper" deployment using bundles / containers / CICD / kubernetes / gitops with PHP as with any other stack. It's also possible to click a wordpress domain for $10/month and upload 2 php files and start making revenue. For a small business that is starting up, choosing between $10k of freelance work to get a nice github actions workflow on GKE + a monthly retainer of $2k for "maintenance" vs a one time $1k of freelance work to get a wordpress where you can configure the plugins and theme yourself is a no brainer. Many of those small business then grow much larger and reach a point where in hindsight you can say "should have gone with docker containers". But the original decision was not just perfectly valid, but probably the only reasonable one.
wonderwonder 4y ago
Not talking about organizations, talking about a little group of people or a startup building something fast to get some cash flow or a poc. Php is there when you just need to get something done and live. I built my SaaS in 4 months with php, probably did 40 total hours of updates over the life of the application and it was used for a decade performing some relatively complex process management.