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That is an impressive misrepresentation of history. PHP and its community were dying by the time FB used it. People here on HN kept talking php down. In 2014

That is an impressive misrepresentation of history. PHP and its community were dying by the time FB used it. People here on HN kept talking php down. In 2014 FB made their own flavour of php with a bunch of perf features, called hack. Eventually a lot of the perf features hack made its way into php. FB is still on its own flavour. Php community is still dying.

59nadir 2y ago
Meh, as far as I can see PHP has a ton of very active development around web services and frameworks, which is its core value proposition. PHP as a language should probably slow down in general but the people who use it don't seem to be really dying out or slowing down as much as the bubble leads us to believe.
- hparadiz 2y ago
  People hate php for no reason. They talk about performance or whatever while building rest crud apps. Literally any language can handle that easily and your bottleneck is usually the database. I've scaled startups on PHP to hundreds of thousands of users running on a few cheap ec2 instances. But no one wants to build new php projects instead focusing on Go, Python, or Ruby. I honestly don't get it. PHP devs earn less. The syntax is super easy to pick up. Don't you want cheaper labor? I've started to learn the ecosystems of the other languages. It's all the same shit. Really.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    I think php has a gentler learning curve, but you still need the same level of expertise to get something decent out of the door. From the recruiting side it's still a PITA to find good engineers and it's reflected in the final cost of hiring. I might be biased, but moving jobs every now and then had more impact than doing php or ruby (the other contender would be nodejs, I think go and python tend to be used on different purposes or complementary to the web stack)
  - iampims 2y ago
    The best thing about PHP: shared nothing architecture. The worst thing about PHP: shared nothing architecture. It works extremely well until it doesn’t really scale anymore.
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    I’ve written PHP off and on since the .php3 extension was a thing. People had very good reasons to hate PHP then. It’s greatly improved, but largely due to the composer ecosystem helping to paper over the worse bits. The global functions are still an awful mess.
    - coxmi 2y ago
      Composer’s means of including packages doesn’t do the language any favours imo — it doubles down on namespaces (and complex PSR 4/7 ones at that) and the cli isn’t particularly intuitive. To me, what PHP needs is a simple module system with scoped functions and variables, an object literal syntax rather than `new \stdClass`, and first-class simple to use threading/async/promises for concurrent requests and IO.
  - mp05 2y ago
    I think most people experienced PHP as the guilty party behind a lot of really, really terrible LAMP stack projects, but most of the time it was because mod_php was serving requests. I used PHP to run some service workers managed with supervisord and it was fine. I just get annoyed with the class-based hierarchy but I'd guess they've evolved since 2017 or whenever I used it last.
some_furry 2y ago
> PHP and its community were dying by the time FB used it. > Php community is still dying. https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/php/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/php/ https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_langua... Yeah I dunno about that one.
- hparadiz 2y ago
  Those stats are based on public information so if someone starts a private project you won't even know it. It makes sense that a mature ecosystem would have fewer open source new projects.
- pquki4 2y ago
  The w3techs number is often quoted, but it has never been validated by anybody else, and its methodology is very questionable if not flat out wrong.
  - some_furry 2y ago
    I'm not one to make perfect the enemy of good. If it's the best we have, it's what I will cite until better is provided.
    - pquki4 2y ago
      My opinion is that there isn't anybody else providing the numbers because it's impossible to get a correct number. Suppose Google homepage runs PHP, google.com/a uses Go, google.com/b uses Django, netflix.com use a custom framework running on Node.js, and facebook.com uses an unknown framework. W3 will happily tell you that the entire google.com is powered by php, fail to attribute netflix to JavaScript, and won't count facebook.com at all. That's exactly what's happening with their methodology. They only attribute each website at most once and rely on decade old hints from headers and error pages that are often non existent on newer/in-house web frameworks these days. Want a real example? Everybody knows that Instagram runs Python. But https://w3techs.com/sites/info/instagram.com https://w3techs.com/sites/info/instagram.com can't tell which server side language it runs. There you have it. I would not use the number unless it can be validated, rather than use it simply because it's "the best we have". No, it's not even remotely good.
mikeocool 2y ago
Perhaps I’m misreading your comment, but PHP was definitely not dying in 2004. Nor was anyone talking it down on HN, as HN didn’t exist.
makeitdouble 2y ago
There was a lot of tension relative to where PHP would be going, but php7 got it out of the tunnel (in no small parts because of hack, as you mention, buy not only). Some companies diversified before that, in particular moving to nodejs for instance, but others took php from there as it got a lot of attention again, and php8 didn't disappoint either. There's still a ton of stuck that could be fixed, and php will always be talked down in some way or another but I don't think it's in a bad position as it is now. There's pretty significant code bases newly built on php right now, even if it's not making the headlines.
yurishimo 2y ago
You’re crazy if you think PHP is dying. Development on the language is steadily pushing forward with big QoL improvements coming to 8.4 later this year. The popular frameworks are still growing steadily and WordPress is starting to slowly shift off some of its stranglehold on old versions now that most webhosts don’t even offer old versions. That said, even Wordpress will work out of the box with old versions (they just don’t write new features against new PHP versions). This is arguably the most exciting time to be a PHP dev!
- pquki4 2y ago
  Dude, go to TIOBE, stackoverflow survey, Google Trends or basically any ranking/metric that compares programming language popularity and user base, and without any question php is getting less and less usage over the last few years, often even ignored. Fewer and fewer job postings mention PHP at all. These are my first hand observations, if you don't believe it, you are welcome to look it up right now.
HeckFeck 2y ago
The days of running /index.php for your own forum or script are indeed in the rear view. But it's still very big for small to medium enterprise, where Java + Spring would be excessive. Most of my local web consultancies who produce things like ticketing websites or specialised directories will reach for it. But maybe the php forums + guestbooks was what you had in mind with 'php community', in that case you have a point. Most of the kids have moved on.
tacker2000 2y ago
What nonsense! Just because you dont use it or (as is apparent) dont know anything about it doesnt mean it’s “dying”.

59nadir 2y ago

Meh, as far as I can see PHP has a ton of very active development around web services and frameworks, which is its core value proposition. PHP as a language should probably slow down in general but the people who use it don't seem to be really dying out or slowing down as much as the bubble leads us to believe.

hparadiz 2y ago
People hate php for no reason. They talk about performance or whatever while building rest crud apps. Literally any language can handle that easily and your bottleneck is usually the database. I've scaled startups on PHP to hundreds of thousands of users running on a few cheap ec2 instances. But no one wants to build new php projects instead focusing on Go, Python, or Ruby. I honestly don't get it. PHP devs earn less. The syntax is super easy to pick up. Don't you want cheaper labor? I've started to learn the ecosystems of the other languages. It's all the same shit. Really.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  I think php has a gentler learning curve, but you still need the same level of expertise to get something decent out of the door. From the recruiting side it's still a PITA to find good engineers and it's reflected in the final cost of hiring. I might be biased, but moving jobs every now and then had more impact than doing php or ruby (the other contender would be nodejs, I think go and python tend to be used on different purposes or complementary to the web stack)
- iampims 2y ago
  The best thing about PHP: shared nothing architecture. The worst thing about PHP: shared nothing architecture. It works extremely well until it doesn’t really scale anymore.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  I’ve written PHP off and on since the .php3 extension was a thing. People had very good reasons to hate PHP then. It’s greatly improved, but largely due to the composer ecosystem helping to paper over the worse bits. The global functions are still an awful mess.
  - coxmi 2y ago
    Composer’s means of including packages doesn’t do the language any favours imo — it doubles down on namespaces (and complex PSR 4/7 ones at that) and the cli isn’t particularly intuitive. To me, what PHP needs is a simple module system with scoped functions and variables, an object literal syntax rather than `new \stdClass`, and first-class simple to use threading/async/promises for concurrent requests and IO.
- mp05 2y ago
  I think most people experienced PHP as the guilty party behind a lot of really, really terrible LAMP stack projects, but most of the time it was because mod_php was serving requests. I used PHP to run some service workers managed with supervisord and it was fine. I just get annoyed with the class-based hierarchy but I'd guess they've evolved since 2017 or whenever I used it last.

some_furry 2y ago

> PHP and its community were dying by the time FB used it. > Php community is still dying. https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/php/ https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/php/ https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_langua... Yeah I dunno about that one.

hparadiz 2y ago
Those stats are based on public information so if someone starts a private project you won't even know it. It makes sense that a mature ecosystem would have fewer open source new projects.
pquki4 2y ago
The w3techs number is often quoted, but it has never been validated by anybody else, and its methodology is very questionable if not flat out wrong.
- some_furry 2y ago
  I'm not one to make perfect the enemy of good. If it's the best we have, it's what I will cite until better is provided.
  - pquki4 2y ago
    My opinion is that there isn't anybody else providing the numbers because it's impossible to get a correct number. Suppose Google homepage runs PHP, google.com/a uses Go, google.com/b uses Django, netflix.com use a custom framework running on Node.js, and facebook.com uses an unknown framework. W3 will happily tell you that the entire google.com is powered by php, fail to attribute netflix to JavaScript, and won't count facebook.com at all. That's exactly what's happening with their methodology. They only attribute each website at most once and rely on decade old hints from headers and error pages that are often non existent on newer/in-house web frameworks these days. Want a real example? Everybody knows that Instagram runs Python. But https://w3techs.com/sites/info/instagram.com https://w3techs.com/sites/info/instagram.com can't tell which server side language it runs. There you have it. I would not use the number unless it can be validated, rather than use it simply because it's "the best we have". No, it's not even remotely good.

mikeocool 2y ago

Perhaps I’m misreading your comment, but PHP was definitely not dying in 2004. Nor was anyone talking it down on HN, as HN didn’t exist.

makeitdouble 2y ago

There was a lot of tension relative to where PHP would be going, but php7 got it out of the tunnel (in no small parts because of hack, as you mention, buy not only). Some companies diversified before that, in particular moving to nodejs for instance, but others took php from there as it got a lot of attention again, and php8 didn't disappoint either. There's still a ton of stuck that could be fixed, and php will always be talked down in some way or another but I don't think it's in a bad position as it is now. There's pretty significant code bases newly built on php right now, even if it's not making the headlines.

yurishimo 2y ago

You’re crazy if you think PHP is dying. Development on the language is steadily pushing forward with big QoL improvements coming to 8.4 later this year. The popular frameworks are still growing steadily and WordPress is starting to slowly shift off some of its stranglehold on old versions now that most webhosts don’t even offer old versions. That said, even Wordpress will work out of the box with old versions (they just don’t write new features against new PHP versions). This is arguably the most exciting time to be a PHP dev!

pquki4 2y ago
Dude, go to TIOBE, stackoverflow survey, Google Trends or basically any ranking/metric that compares programming language popularity and user base, and without any question php is getting less and less usage over the last few years, often even ignored. Fewer and fewer job postings mention PHP at all. These are my first hand observations, if you don't believe it, you are welcome to look it up right now.

HeckFeck 2y ago

The days of running /index.php for your own forum or script are indeed in the rear view. But it's still very big for small to medium enterprise, where Java + Spring would be excessive. Most of my local web consultancies who produce things like ticketing websites or specialised directories will reach for it. But maybe the php forums + guestbooks was what you had in mind with 'php community', in that case you have a point. Most of the kids have moved on.

tacker2000 2y ago

What nonsense! Just because you dont use it or (as is apparent) dont know anything about it doesnt mean it’s “dying”.