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PHP devs hate to admit that the only reason PHP is still relevant at all today is because of WordPress. If WordPress moved to a modern language tomorrow, PHP w

by skrowl 4y ago

PHP devs hate to admit that the only reason PHP is still relevant at all today is because of WordPress. If WordPress moved to a modern language tomorrow, PHP would cease to exist afterwards.

kugelblitz 4y ago
I've worked professionally with PHP as freelancer the last 10 years. I almost only use Symfony and Laravel. But there's also Typo3, Spryker, Magento, Drupal, Shopware, Sylius. I won't touch Wordpress. I worked with it about 15 years ago for a few years, but didn't touch it afterwards.
meigwilym 4y ago
WP is way behind modern PHP. From the article > Right now, WordPress only has beta support for PHP 8.0. Now, to be clear: PHP 8.0 was released in 2020, and is now end of life, three years later — and WordPress doesn't yet support it…
ehnto 4y ago
WordPress would cease as well I think. There are dozens of alternatives better than WordPress, if upgrading it meant a complete tooling change I think many would take the opportunity to replatform to something else. The only thing WP really has over them is it's expansive plugin library, and buy in from clients. But it's not really up to devs. I don't think many devs believe it's the best system, but it is desired by clients very often.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > The only thing WP really has over them is it's expansive plugin librar The expansive plugin library that WP has is due to its ease of use, stability and the extent it goes to acommodate users, developers and businesses at the same time. Its no small factor, its no small feat.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    I do agree, which is why I think WordPress would go away pretty quickly of they ever invalidate their legacy of plugins through a major change.
    - unity1001 4y ago
      Yep. That's why WP has always prioritized backwards compatibility.
unity1001 4y ago
I don't get how people can say that. WP is almost ~50% of all websites. PHP is ~80% of the websites. There is a whopping 30% in between. And moving WP to a 'modern' language (whatever that modern means) is not something possible. ~60,000 plugins, similar number of themes, 30% of all ecommerce websites, billions of dollars of businesses with dependencies ride on it.
omnimus 4y ago
You probably dont make content sites. The reason PHP is still relevant today is because no other language has CMSes as good as those from PHP. And i dont mean WP or Drupal. Craft, Kirby, Twill, October, Grav, Statamic, Bolt, Processwire… All of those projects have big active ecosystems around them and are used for serious projects. Most other languages dont have a single CMS. There is no CMS in Go or Elixir. Javascript have some but they are super immature and mostly hype. Python has some super ugly ones based around Django. Now people may look down on these PHP cmses but many web projects like ecommerce grow as extensions of CMS. And most of these CMSes are suited to this because they are nice web framework with customizable admin area. So it often doesnt make sense not use PHP.

by skrowl 4y ago

PHP devs hate to admit that the only reason PHP is still relevant at all today is because of WordPress. If WordPress moved to a modern language tomorrow, PHP would cease to exist afterwards.

kugelblitz 4y ago

I've worked professionally with PHP as freelancer the last 10 years. I almost only use Symfony and Laravel. But there's also Typo3, Spryker, Magento, Drupal, Shopware, Sylius. I won't touch Wordpress. I worked with it about 15 years ago for a few years, but didn't touch it afterwards.

meigwilym 4y ago

WP is way behind modern PHP. From the article > Right now, WordPress only has beta support for PHP 8.0. Now, to be clear: PHP 8.0 was released in 2020, and is now end of life, three years later — and WordPress doesn't yet support it…

ehnto 4y ago

WordPress would cease as well I think. There are dozens of alternatives better than WordPress, if upgrading it meant a complete tooling change I think many would take the opportunity to replatform to something else. The only thing WP really has over them is it's expansive plugin library, and buy in from clients. But it's not really up to devs. I don't think many devs believe it's the best system, but it is desired by clients very often.

unity1001 4y ago
> The only thing WP really has over them is it's expansive plugin librar The expansive plugin library that WP has is due to its ease of use, stability and the extent it goes to acommodate users, developers and businesses at the same time. Its no small factor, its no small feat.
- ehnto 4y ago
  I do agree, which is why I think WordPress would go away pretty quickly of they ever invalidate their legacy of plugins through a major change.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    Yep. That's why WP has always prioritized backwards compatibility.

unity1001 4y ago

I don't get how people can say that. WP is almost ~50% of all websites. PHP is ~80% of the websites. There is a whopping 30% in between. And moving WP to a 'modern' language (whatever that modern means) is not something possible. ~60,000 plugins, similar number of themes, 30% of all ecommerce websites, billions of dollars of businesses with dependencies ride on it.

omnimus 4y ago

You probably dont make content sites. The reason PHP is still relevant today is because no other language has CMSes as good as those from PHP. And i dont mean WP or Drupal. Craft, Kirby, Twill, October, Grav, Statamic, Bolt, Processwire… All of those projects have big active ecosystems around them and are used for serious projects. Most other languages dont have a single CMS. There is no CMS in Go or Elixir. Javascript have some but they are super immature and mostly hype. Python has some super ugly ones based around Django. Now people may look down on these PHP cmses but many web projects like ecommerce grow as extensions of CMS. And most of these CMSes are suited to this because they are nice web framework with customizable admin area. So it often doesnt make sense not use PHP.