2 ms·

I think PHP is lackluster, inconsistent, and feels pretty clumsy in general, but to suggest that it doesn't qualify as a candidate for serious application devel

I think PHP is lackluster, inconsistent, and feels pretty clumsy in general, but to suggest that it doesn't qualify as a candidate for serious application development in 2014 is a notion that arises from ignorance of the platform. Client requirements notwithstanding, it wouldn't be my first choice, but I've worked on very well engineered PHP solutions that were successful and have so far proven to be quite maintainable. A strong engineering lead is very important (someone needs to enforce the use of composer, adherence to the appropriate PSR standards, testing, modern mvc/routing etc), but PHP is absolutely capable of producing fast, clean, maintainable software.

meowface 12y ago
It can be a candidate, but when there are so many better candidates out there why bother? The only times I can understand it are for legacy reasons or if your developers only know PHP.
- vectorpush 12y ago
  Perhaps your engineering team favors the workflow of a particular PHP framework. Perhaps you've estimated that for a particular project, it might be worthwhile to leverage the talent and effort that's been poured into HHVM. Perhaps you've had continued success solving a certain type of problem with a particular PHP library or tool. Perhaps you are constrained by regional availability. Perhaps you're interested in building a product or tool that you intend for your customers to deploy themselves and you want to provide them with the simplest path to accomplish that goal. Perhaps you're building a complex SPA or an otherwise JS heavy application that only requires a simple back-end, and you want to focus your big bucks on attracting quality JS engineers while choosing cheaper PHP engineers for the relatively simple CRUD API component.