Comment by kxrm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kxrm | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> You wouldn't pick it for your job interview's coding test if you had a choice (Python all the way there),

I do actually pick it for several reasons.

  1. I want to know if the environment I am going into is pragmatic about languages.  If you are going to refuse to continue working with me over something so minor as PHP then we aren't a culture fit.
  2. I want to showcase my best.  I know this language in and out.  It's the first language I learned and I have the greatest ease of building algorithms with it.  I've had interviews where I was asked to do something with PHP that PHP did not support and I found ways to make it work.
  3. In some ways I love the conversation that comes with positive interviews when using it.  Oftentimes the interviewer isn't very familiar and it sparks discussion on the languages benefits and drawbacks further showcasing my skillset.

Sure as we progress along in the interview process I will switch to whatever language the company uses primarily but if I get a choice I always choose PHP.

Your comment articulates my thoughts on PHP very succinctly. Especially the culture fit bit. PHP is so insanely pragmatic that if someone looks down on it due to false preconceived notions then they're not the kind of person I can probably work happily with anyway.

It's also the thing I'm best at!

And they are humble. They know their state, the flaws in their language and the long problematic history they have.

They cherish their languages but are not fanatics.

PHP has its fair share of snobbery as well. Non-framework devs look down on Symfony, who in turn look down on Laravel devs, and everybody looks down on WordPress devs.

I started out as a symfony snob. Got sick of writing java in PHP so I picked up laravel. Got sick of having to modify my code every time Taylor huffed some new shit so I started building things using WordPress.

It's so refreshing knowing that my websites auto update themselves and I never have to update them unless there is a legitimate reason to do so.

Backwards compatibility is the ONLY thing I care about in a framework. Life's too short to babysit some frameworks ideas of how my code should work ten years after building the damn thing.

Symfony and Laravel have their proper usages.

I used to be Symfony snob too but tried Laravel and I definitely see its strengths.

Laravel was not the right choice with our homegrown, non-framework app, with an existing schema.

Yea, don't debate that. I just personally have no tolerance for the behaviour of these framework developers and the level of work they impose on their users.

For a business that has engineers to manage this day to day it's less of an issue. For building things you want to live online untouched for a decade it's just not an option.

Laravel is nice to build stuff fast in one particular way. It's awful to maintain and heaven forbid you have a different idea about how things should be done.

Every language does, I think it comes with the territory of any domain where fine details matter. The trick is to cultivate your own opinions and approach to excellence, but recognize there are a lot of different things to optimize for, and no one likes a comic-book guy attitude.

> and everybody looks down on WordPress devs.

Maybe because they have been actively sabotaging progress and dissing those pushing for progress? gophp5 in 2008 pushed everyone but Wordpress off PHP4 and some Wordpress core committers as recently as 2017 have called gophp5 an "abysmal failure" despite it was anything but.

I would look down on any group not using a framework, or rolling their own.

Not to nitpick but choosing a programming language isn't a minor decision nor is switching programming style, e.g. OOB vs FP. Of course I agree with the intend and I too want to work in pragmatic and explorative programming environments trying out different programming languages and styles depending on the project.

>Not to nitpick but choosing a programming language isn't a minor decision

In the grand scheme of things, talking solely about software projects not life in general, it kind of is.

Most modern languages, are interchangeable, and projects of most kinds have been done with all of them succesfully.

As long as the programmers for the chosen language are available, and the libs you want are there, for startups doing some web backend for example, it doesn't really matter if it's Python, Ruby, JS/Node, PHP, C#, Go, Java, CL, Kotlin, Clojure, and so on.

I don't think "interchangeable" is the right word here. In some cases, perhaps, but different languages have different idioms and, since you have Clojure on there, different paradigms. If the individual coming into the new language is diligent about learning how to properly work in it, then all is well. If they decide to try and force what they already know into the new language, that is problem. I've experienced the latter far more often than the former. If you're working for a feature factory, though, I guess it doesn't matter.

I disagree. There will be lots of considerations like ecosystems, long term support, ease to find developers, prior experience, etc…

Probably missed the "As long as the programmers for the chosen language are available, and the libs you want are there" part.

Working with Clojure is a world apart compared with any of the others listed.

In the end of the day, not that different.

Besides, I included CL there.

If you worked long enough, language or code style are beginning to become almost completely irrelevant

That's a good point, I imagine doing that would screen out companies run by language snobs.

My go to for this is to say "I don't think Typescript is needed most of the time". The snobs look at you like you just farted in their face.

But having done some coding interviews where time and space complexity were a factor, I found it easier to succeed with Python.

> "I don't think Typescript is needed most of the time

This is a terrible example, typescript (especially in 2023) is basically free with most setups (including vanilla) and easy to ignore for velocity then optionally enforce typechecking later.

A much better hill to die on would be large frameworks/tooling like react/angular/webpack.

Exactly. If the interviewer responds like that, they've told me the company culture, and I know to stay away.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com