Ask Slashdot: Should I Ditch PHP?

Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino does PHP for a living, but says he's growing "increasingly frustrated with the ignorant and clueless in the vincinity of PHP." Crappy code and baaaaad application setups is one thing, but people refusing to fix them or simply not even understanding the broader implications of bad applications or attempting SEO with gadgets while refusing to fix 3.5 MB-per-pagecall are just minor tidbits in a history of increasingly unnerving run-ins with knuckledragers in the "web agency" camp...

Will I leave the larger part of this backwards stuff behind if I move to another server-side programming language such as Java or Kotlin for professional work in the broader web area? Do I have a chance to do quality work on quality projects using PHP, or are those slim compare to other programming languages? In short, should I ditch PHP?
"I think .NET is a much cleaner language to work in with Microsoft's excellent Visual Studio IDE and debugger," argues Slashdot reader Agret , adding "there are many large projects in my city hiring .NET developers and being a strongly typed language the code quality is generally better than PHP."

But what's been your experience? And would a frustrated developer find more quality projects by ditching PHP?

Comments

Languages don't write code, people write code.

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Don't blame tools for the things that people do with them. You'll find the same problems wherever you go.

Actually You CAN'T

[Delifisek]

If you came from PHP without any other language experience (except javascript). You cannot understand how PHP exclusively fit for Web development until you start do something with other language.

Other languages need for spesific frameworks, configurations, concepts for web projects. PHP was ready to run. When you try to learning other languages web stack you will be frustrated and return to PHP again. Other languages need extra steps to do simple things in web because of their nature.

Sure php much worse syntax and function names most other languages. However that was language quirks any professional can handle.

Problem is, php entry level is low and with abundant documents and training videos people easily put something on web and so they think they can handle big projects.

And without strict guidelines for project management, php can be lethal as a dodge viper on rainy day.

What you need is, find a battle hardened Project manager which uses Jira and other tools to agile development plus getting know automated testing.

After 6 months You will be fine with php any given sunday.

If you insist to change, you should look Google GO. not .NET it was for windows shops for who develop desktop applications. It wasn't just a language, you have to change your development style, development environment working environment etc.

Google GO was logical next step, It was easy (to comparing other static languages) and it was forced writing disciplined code practices by nature. It fast and you do not need change entire environment. Plus you get military grade arsenal (comparing to php) for complicated projects.

My 2 cents after 20 years of PHP Web development.