[Sam]

Are there any PHP programmers out there? What's your opinion on the language?

I (skim)read through a relatively old (2012) article about PHP: https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fr ... ad-design/ (and how bad it is... ).

I did try and learn PHP and remember thinking... well this is as confusing as hell... even for basic things:

---

e.g.

In Javascript, to get the length of a string or an array you use the .length property.
In Python, to get the length of a string or an array you use the len() function.

This makes sense... You define classes or datatypes when you set up a programming language... Why wouldn't you just chose the same naming for important functions or properties?

In PHP...
It's strlen() for the string length and sizeof() for arrays.

---

What do you as a PHP programmer, love about PHP? Is there anything you hate? Where do you think the language is heading with many companies, who have used PHP in the past, looking to extend using other languages (Facebook and Wordpress)?

[MeowsePad]

It will be interesting to see if another language becomes dominant for web applications considering the fact that PHP has been dominant for my entire life. I agree that it is quite confusing and counter-intuitive even compared to other relatively difficult languages like C++/C# and Java.

[Sam]

It will be interesting to see if another language becomes dominant for web applications considering the fact that PHP has been dominant for my entire life. I agree that it is quite confusing and counter-intuitive even compared to other relatively difficult languages like C++/C# and Java.

I certainly think PHP will be overtaken as the dominant language for web development... but by which language? I don't know and it's difficult to see trends. I certainly think Python (Django) for it's lower learning curve and NodeJS for it's speed (and the fact you basically have to learn JavaScript) are contenders.

[skysnap]

I have worked with Java, Python during my testing career. And used PHP mostly for freelancing and small jobs. I think there is an elite community out there who likes to take shot at PHP for almost everything. PHP being easy to use and deploy is often mocked. Other languages making you work more than PHP are treated as if they are the ultimate solution. In terms of language features, each language has something good or bad to offer. But considering PHP is cost saving and also solving problem on consumer level. I think PHP is mocked for being dominant on that part. As long as consumer pays for cheap php solutions I don't see it being a bad language. But it;ll be continued to be mocked for being what it is.

[earthsalt]

I have done some digging online and come up with the following information: There is

implicit conversion in the language. This could consequently lead to bugs that are unexpected.