PHP Is the Best Choice for Long‑Term Business | Hacker News Reader

PHP Is the Best Choice for Long‑Term Business

tomasvotruba.com

26 pointssamspenc14 comments

> ssh some@server

> There are 544384348946349783246237946349732647 npm packages that need updated.

> There are 548432782344434 critical npm packages.

It's all about what works. My crazy opinion is PHP makes a great CLI, so does nodejs. Node has amazing frameworks, PHP is battle-hardened back-end wise but front end you're coming back to JS. I honestly hate what the JS bloated internet has become and enjoy PHP, but I also enjoy javscript.

Tons of apps are already electron bloated stuff; JS is in.

Use what works and what isn't going to break.

Be mindful of JS CDNS and supply chain attacks.

Keep things up to date. Fix them if they break.

Strange article.

It's basically a list of nice things going for PHP, but you can write that for literally any tech in any context — like, I could argue that you should build web sites with the Unity game engine or raw Python by listing out-of-context stats all day long.

Whenever the author actually compares, it breaks down:

- Ok, so Lavarel is from 2011 — React is from 2013, Django is from 2005...so what

- Sure, there may be a new js framework everyday, but not a new version of js...and anyway, an active and innovative community is automatically bad why?

- PHP has "2 strong framework players" — ok, so has Python, js has two to four...

- "lack of advanced technology" — what does this even mean?

Change my mind, but modern JS frameworks aren't just hype. They solve real problems for complex UIs. PHP's great for some stuff, but try building a snappy SPA with it.

Usually I've found the person who derides modern JS frameworks and champions xyz is usually of the type that hates SPAs.

Which is ok!

But unfortunately they're oftentimes also the type that believes that if they don't personally like something then no one else should like it, and if they do then they're wrong.

Poor article IMO, sounds like it has been written by an uninformed junior, except it's apparently not. And this line is unreal:

    "Last but not least, other languages lack advanced technology."

I agree with your perspective, it does come across like someone who has had success learning one stack and that's great, but it's hardly a picture of the varied landscape. There's nothing wrong with PHP and I've seen plenty of businesses do just great with it. I've also seen companies doing equivalent with Ruby, and Go, etc, and even a mix of languages. You can do all this without falling into the pitfalls (which can happy in any language/ecosystem).

There's nothing wrong with choosing PHP, and also nothing wrong with other alternatives too.

I'm not saying it's unique to PHP, but I remember being bemused by Daniel Kerr's hostile and abrasive response to OpenCart PRs and critiques with responses in the vein of "oh yeah? well I got rich off it, so who's the smart guy now!"

This is essentially the COBOL argument. Sure, it might not be very good, but it’s long-term stable.

Fortunately, many other frameworks are long-term stable, but also have a good programming language behind them. Django, Ruby on Rails, and there are similar options in Java or C#.

As for the other points, sure, PHP might be the one language where there are exactly two strong web frameworks. But I don’t see the problem of there being 3 or 4. Django has plenty of competition that drives innovation – web2py, flask, etc.

And same for those other claims. All major languages have various kinds of code analysis tools. Most have healthy communities, etc.

I enjoy PHP. I've been using it for about 20 years. I enjoy writing in the language, most likely because I've gotten good with it. It is my preferred tool for creating things and solving problems. <3

The article is mixing PHP with JS frontend frameworks.

It doesn’t really matter which language you use, it’s about getting the job done. Some people can get thing done quicker in certain languages just because they are good at what they do, not because the tech stack is perfect.

As I said 8 hours ago when this was first posted ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41432574https://news.yc... ):

This is an opinion masquerading as fact, backed up by terrible reasoning.

https://github.com/nikic/php-parser is neat, but not unique to PHP.

See https://docs.python.org/3.8/library/ast.html for example.

I used it a lot way back in the day... Because I was young and it wasn't perl. Then I did a CS degree, and found many better things. I think this summed up my experience: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

Why would I pick PHP in 2024 for greenfield? There is ZERO benefits.

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