But, what is, if not php? Do you shoot for what has had longevity, or what's rising?
By learning PHP, you are effectively locking yourself into the narrow niche of backend web development (ask me how I know!), whereas other languages have much broader target platform appeal.
As an example, the obvious competitor to PHP of Javascript already beats PHP by also providing backend web services, but also has support from AWS lambda, GCP Cloud functions, and even the somewhat esoteric embedded javascript for micro-controllers options.
> Do you shoot for what has had longevity, or what's rising?
Coming back to your original question - I think it's both. Depending on what you wanted to do, I'd pick Javascript (see above), then depending on what else you wanted to do, one of Golang, Python, C#, or Kotlin.
I'm quite happy with the Web niche, it's one of the longest lived, the stablest, the most open, and has some of the longest backwards-compatibility records around.
I can write a website today which will work in 25 years worth of client software! I think that's remarkable.
Simplistically speaking, all I have to do is stick the path hashbang at the top of a php file, follow with the business logic and run it as a shell script. Clears any urgent ad-hoc request within a day.
The question is who's hiring/where will you work, and what will you work on? In my area, there aren't many PHP shops. So it could be Wordpress or Facebook/Meta. PHP might be long-lived, but if you have to relocate to find a PHP job, does that help? Same with e.g. COBOL, Sharepoint, etc. And to be fair, what's rising has that problem outside tech centres.
Something popular like Python is generally a "better" investment, covers more bases.
It is cruel, and something Universities have been doing forever.
That's not true for Java or C#.
But what is, if not Motorola 68000 Assembly? Do you shoot for what has had longevity, or what's rising?
Pointing out that there is not absolute certainty about what is the top choice for a better idea does not make php, or visual basic, or 68000 worth spending your time on in 2021.
Pick whatever you want. Just don't pick a language that is known to be on it's last legs.
Also I wasn't pointing out what you say, you're reading into it a bit. I haven't used PHP in a long ass time. But it seems like not a bad choice for certain markets, at least as much as Python and Ruby imo
Where? At Facebook? Or somewhere else?
What is this out of the park career path I'd have had choosing ruby? Can you share some more details?
Almost the best advice I can give to a developer is stop being fixated on language, and start being fixated on how to solve business problems, on communicating coherently (and like a human being), and being able to quickly grok complexity. The language you program in is almost the least important part of the offer (as long as you're competent in it)
I’ve heard that exact sentiment over and over since the RoR community aggressively started with their anti-php agenda in about 2006.
It's not as 'trendy' as it once was, but it's better than ever and still widely used.
Do all of these make it faster than PHP?
Honestly, I have no idea how it compares to PHP. If I wanted truly fast I'd use a compiled language. The point is more that Ruby is still being used and improved upon all the time; far from 'dead'.
Exactly the same with PHP. The handful of Rails devs I know bemoan the fact that fewer shops are growing their Rails/Ruby use. I did a stint at a shop that was mainly PHP, but they migrated most stuff to a combination of node and python, because "they couldn't find php developers". While it was sort of true, they couldn't find affordable php devs to work with the legacy mess (which was only 5-6 years old), and it was cheaper to have less experienced (but more) node/python folks come in and rebuild distinct bits of the older PHP stuff (at least, that was my understanding as an outsider - this happened after I left).
Some orgs are moving away from PHP - others are moving towards it. Same with Ruby, although I don't see as much movement toward Ruby as I do with PHP. But I do also see orgs moving away from each.
We'll need to look at it a year or two from now and compare oranges to oranges; the new Ruby JIT (YJIT) is optimized for real world web apps, not for some artificial fibonacci benchmark. Shopify is using benchmarks on actual Rails apps like their store front to see the improvement (https://speed.yjit.org/). If I had to bet I think yes Shopify is serious enough about this to make Ruby faster than PHP - who is working on PHP internals now - Zend? In the end it's mostly a question of how much resources you throw at a problem.
So if you need a job you would probably have better chances knowing PHP then knowing Rust. But if in your area is raining with Rust jobs then go ahead and learn only Rust.
Some popular choices in this bubble seem to be:
- clojure
- common lisp for some reason
- php is mentioned often here, also not sure why
- rust
- swift if you're into ios/apple, kotlin if you're into android
- typescript