Have you seen this cartoon before? The Lisp panel is especially ((((((hilarious)))))). It is fun to mock each eccentricity of a programming language. Unless you are a PHP developer. Apparently, PHP isn’t uniquely flawed like all programming languages, it is just suicidal.
Programming is an amazingly cliquish community. Every developer has a preferred language with philosophical reasoning or performance rankings to back up the choice. I love the variety we have when picking a technology, it keeps the industry exciting and nimble. However, I hate all of the constant derision that many programmers throw at languages they don’t use. I’m guilty. “I hate JavaScript, callback hell is the worst”, “Ruby is just weird”, “C# is for Microsoft groupies” are all sentiments we have heard or thought ourselves. These negative thoughts are born from a lack of understanding of the technology or through an insecure need to validate whatever tool the programmer is already using. In particular, PHP has been the constant butt of the joke.
I started using PHP a couple years ago and currently use it in a full time position. PHP definitely has its flaws, like every other programming language, but I still enjoy its simplicity, development speed and open ecosystem. What I didn’t expect to find when starting PHP, is the constant derision of the language from other programmers and even non-technical people. “I’m Andrew, I mostly use PHP” / “Oh wow, I’m sorry” is a common verbal exchange. After enough of these conversations, the negativity starts to affect you.
Impostor syndrome is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud”. ~ Wikipedia
Guess who got imposter syndrome? It is really easy to get imposter syndrome when you constantly feel like you need to learn another programming language. It does not matter if you create a successful app in PHP or your contributions are valued by a company. Your next thought will be “I should have written the app in Java”.
One of the cures for imposter syndrome is accepting your own accomplishments and valuing your own expertise. Therefore, I want to spread the word. If you have written an app that is valued by a company, is secure and is easy to maintain, then you are successful, no matter the programming language. If you are a budding PHP developer, don’t be discouraged by all the negativity, just build something great. If you don’t use PHP, I encourage you to look at all the web apps built in the language and give it a chance. Maybe it won’t be so bad after all: PHP: The Right Way.
Latest comments (107)
Hi Andrew,
It is all about politics...
Yes, even in development languages ..
Java owned by Oracle,
C# as your know , by microsoft
(lately microsoft is taking control on Python)
and PHP is left for the Poor developers :)
I've been developing in PHP for very long time at least 10 years ...
PHP is strong as JAVA and C# (yes , the right way to compare php is to these languages)
PHP is even stronger then JAVA and C#, as deployment is much, but much , more easier and cleaner the others.
The real jump was made from 7.2 and above
Where OO has become as C# and JAVA alike
If you are a good PHP developer , jumping to C and C++ is quite simple ... you will find the syntax much a like
I
I think a lot of people hate PHP because people enjoy joining the trend train. I don’t think I’ve ever really heard a good argument against using PHP that made me think it actually sucks or there is major issues with it. Most of the major platforms today are built on it.
i'm in a job how php programmer, I was developing in java and delphi before. I'm loving the form who the language works, without the complexity who nobody knows explain
Thanks for loving PHP Andrew! I use it every day and proud of my language.
Use the tools you know will work the best. I use VB.NET for desktop apps because we have an all windows environment, and the other programmer here knows it. I use PHP for dumping data from one server to another because I know it and it works well. We're all constantly learning new stuff anyway. No idea why we need to stick with one thing.
Yeah, I agree. The constant hate on PHP gets old. It's a fine language with some quirks, it's also been evolving since 1995. I agree it wasn't necessarily a "designed" language, but who cares? It's easy to learn, easy to use, is installed everywhere, there are a ton of developers who can write it and most of the poor design choices can be worked around. Modern frameworks like symphony and laravel make PHP pretty painless, and it's great for quick prototyping. There's also a pretty solid community that is generally friendly to beginners who don't know anything about programming. Some people really hate it, and that's fine... lucky for them there are other languages. Personally, it gets the job done and while it might not be my first choice for a new project in 2018, it's still the #7 most popular programming language according to the TIOBE Index so it must be doing something right.
I like it how people say that php evolved and look at symfony. Hello, symfony is a web framework, you dont say that java evolved because look at latest spring. Sad fact that there is no php as a language with opinion or coherent concepts behind it, no usable stl and no evolution. This is why comic strip about php is legit. But to understand that one has to exit php-comfort zone and try out other languages (plain, no frameworks) to understand the difference
PS and its interesting that people write how symfony promotes good practices when in fact it does completely opposite - hook everything to internal events, any bundle can set a global listener, whole idea of bundles, promoted for a long time and finally considered a bad idea by creators themselves, validator component etc.
It's funny, I've used quite a few languages over the years, but I always return to PHP. I'm a web developer and PHP is built for the web, along with JavaScript. Neither of them are perfect languages but they work.
If I was writing an App or some other type of software I'd use another language.
PHP IS GREAT.
Yes! Choose your language on its own merit purely in the context of your project; nevermind how people feel about it.