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Sorry, but the article seems like an expression of imposter syndrome and excessive worry about what other people think or say. In this case the other people mai

Sorry, but the article seems like an expression of imposter syndrome and excessive worry about what other people think or say. In this case the other people mainly consist of anonymous critics and "gatekeepers" online. Why hitch your identity or sense of worth to a programming language or tool? Why get upset about people who have different opinions when you can just as well choose to ignore them? If you can add value for your employer or customers and make a living, which language or tools you use to do that makes no difference. Pick any language, tool, style of work and you can find people who criticize it. So what? How does random criticism rise to gatekeeping? The job market has tightened up because of economic changes and worry that money will get tighter. That affects most sectors, not just tech or programming. If you read HN you know that many companies have hiring freezes, people have or will soon get laid off, and good jobs get scarce with more competition. That has nothing to do with gatekeeping or programmers who look down on PHP. The programming business goes through booms and busts for reasons that have nothing to do with programming languages. I have used PHP for years, since it came out and offered an alternative to Perl CGI scripts, ASP, and Cold Fusion. It gets the job done. It has some problems. I don't use PHP exclusively, I don't think of or call myself a "PHP programmer," and I don't care that some programmers hate it, whether out of experience or ignorance. My customers don't care about that, they have business problems to solve, a budget and schedule, and don't read language flame wars. Focus on finding work rather than complaining about job ads and PHP haters. Sifting through job postings online and filling out applications describes one of the least effective and most time-consuming ways to find work.

larve 4y ago
I think you are expressing what I am saying too. It’s not about not criticizing technology, it’s about doing so in a productive and inclusive way. Even as a seasoned developer, getting blasted as worthy of prosecution for criminal negligence in #rust on IRC because I mentioned I was a C++ embedded developer led me to be put off rust, which is a neat language, for a couple of years. Who benefits from that?
- gregjor 4y ago
  That kind of thing makes me wonder why anyone has so much of their identity and self-worth invested in a programming language. I never say I am a programmer and certainly not I am a PHP (or Javascript, or C, or whatever) programmer. I say I write software. The job and the tools I happen to use don't form part of my identity. I don't take other people's opinions personally. No one benefits from that kind of thing, and I know it happens a lot in online forums and chats. But I see it as their problem, not mine. I don't feel a need to get included in a fake "community" built around a programming language or framework or editor and I can't understand people who do.
  - larve 4y ago
    I certainly agree with that, but that level of detachment and comfort with technology comes with time. When you start out, programming is your tool, until you grow and discover new tools, usually through the help of other people. Certainly communities, conferences, meetups, websites centered around specific technologies, niches and programming languages make sense. They are not “fake.”
    - gregjor 4y ago
      The author of the article wrote on his site that he has twenty years experience. That seems like enough time to disconnect one's identity and self-worth from PHP. The large group of programmers who use PHP don't qualify as a "community" to me. Programmers can share and learn from each other, and criticize tools and express opinions, and that has some value, but it falls short of what I would call a community. It seems fake in the same sense that the BMW motorcycle rider rallies I used to attend seem fake -- all we had in common was owning a brand of motorcycle. "Contrived" maybe describes the hollowness better than "fake."
      - larve 4y ago
        I’m the author actually :) I certainly don’t identify as a PHP developer, but it’s the one language I use relatively often that gets an intense amount of condescending hate in the US. I also was referring to users of a language more so than communities, although I am certainly part of php channels and entire php slacks, just as I am part of devops slacks or common lisp and rust and react discords. These certainly feel like communities. The situations I am referring to more broadly is say, the inevitable onslaught of “PHP is hot garbage” comments on anything mentioning PHP. How does that make people write PHP for a living feel? What’s the point? The only thing I can do as a user is to ignore the troll and feel slightly worse for my day. I wager that people writing those comments don’t lead the most fulfilled lives either. Please, criticize the latest language RFCs and the performance of the interpreter and the use of globals, criticize the proliferation of copy-paste wordpress plugins, how you dislike a certain CSS style. Show how clojure tackles things differently and what there is to be gained. That is very different, it shows respect to other people, and it opens up a dialogue where both sides can gain something. If anything, I would say that writing such comments is the author defining their identity as “not a PHP user”, since that is about the entire information contained in such a statement.

larve 4y ago

I think you are expressing what I am saying too. It’s not about not criticizing technology, it’s about doing so in a productive and inclusive way. Even as a seasoned developer, getting blasted as worthy of prosecution for criminal negligence in #rust on IRC because I mentioned I was a C++ embedded developer led me to be put off rust, which is a neat language, for a couple of years. Who benefits from that?

gregjor 4y ago
That kind of thing makes me wonder why anyone has so much of their identity and self-worth invested in a programming language. I never say I am a programmer and certainly not I am a PHP (or Javascript, or C, or whatever) programmer. I say I write software. The job and the tools I happen to use don't form part of my identity. I don't take other people's opinions personally. No one benefits from that kind of thing, and I know it happens a lot in online forums and chats. But I see it as their problem, not mine. I don't feel a need to get included in a fake "community" built around a programming language or framework or editor and I can't understand people who do.
- larve 4y ago
  I certainly agree with that, but that level of detachment and comfort with technology comes with time. When you start out, programming is your tool, until you grow and discover new tools, usually through the help of other people. Certainly communities, conferences, meetups, websites centered around specific technologies, niches and programming languages make sense. They are not “fake.”
  - gregjor 4y ago
    The author of the article wrote on his site that he has twenty years experience. That seems like enough time to disconnect one's identity and self-worth from PHP. The large group of programmers who use PHP don't qualify as a "community" to me. Programmers can share and learn from each other, and criticize tools and express opinions, and that has some value, but it falls short of what I would call a community. It seems fake in the same sense that the BMW motorcycle rider rallies I used to attend seem fake -- all we had in common was owning a brand of motorcycle. "Contrived" maybe describes the hollowness better than "fake."
    - larve 4y ago
      I’m the author actually :) I certainly don’t identify as a PHP developer, but it’s the one language I use relatively often that gets an intense amount of condescending hate in the US. I also was referring to users of a language more so than communities, although I am certainly part of php channels and entire php slacks, just as I am part of devops slacks or common lisp and rust and react discords. These certainly feel like communities. The situations I am referring to more broadly is say, the inevitable onslaught of “PHP is hot garbage” comments on anything mentioning PHP. How does that make people write PHP for a living feel? What’s the point? The only thing I can do as a user is to ignore the troll and feel slightly worse for my day. I wager that people writing those comments don’t lead the most fulfilled lives either. Please, criticize the latest language RFCs and the performance of the interpreter and the use of globals, criticize the proliferation of copy-paste wordpress plugins, how you dislike a certain CSS style. Show how clojure tackles things differently and what there is to be gained. That is very different, it shows respect to other people, and it opens up a dialogue where both sides can gain something. If anything, I would say that writing such comments is the author defining their identity as “not a PHP user”, since that is about the entire information contained in such a statement.