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Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

It depends how old. It sounds like you're working on COBOL or something. Most programmers are pretty flexible I think -- at least I am.

What's your Joel test score? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

It may be an indication why developers are avoiding you.

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It's PHP -- but solid object-oriented PHP with a popular framework (Symfony).

Hadn't seen the Joel Test before -- thanks for pointing it out.

1. Do you use source control? Yes (Git) 2. Can you make a build in one step? Yes (one command) 3. Do you make daily builds? Yes (continuous integration) 4. Do you have a bug database? Yes 5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code? Yes 6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule? Yes 7. Do you have a spec? Many 8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Yes (remote) 9. Do you use the best tools money can buy? Mid-range 10. Do you have testers? To an extent 11. Do new candidates write code during their interview? Yes 12. Do you do hallway usability testing? No

So we've got like a good 10/12 (I'm giving a half point each for 9 and 10 :)

I am sorry to say, but in this case, at least some people I know would refuse not because it's "old", but because it's PHP. They would joke about rather using COBOL than PHP, indeed.

(I count among them, and yes, I do remember enough to somehow get by in ISPF on IBM mainframe ;))

Your problem isn't that PHP is old. PHP is the same age as Java and there are plenty of people willing to use that. Objective-C is trendy now, and that's 12 years older than PHP.

Your problem is that PHP has probably the worst reputation of any programming language since COBOL.

Looks like I'm not the only one who has had this problem: http://blog.mailchimp.com/ewww-you-use-php/

A good friend of mine chose to take a job doing java at a big company rather then a hot tech startup because he would be using PHP(And he is a start up kind of person). It's not the fact that PHP is bad, its that there are so many other maturing and robust languages.

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