If you are a fan of language “X” and think it’s better than PHP, here’s your chance to convince me. After some discussion with colleagues, I’m very interested to find a general consensus as to which web development language (server-side) is the true “future of web development”. My research reveals that PHP is the most popular web development language currently. Even though it’s clear that PHP is widely accepted, how long will that be true? Is PHP dying?
Now please don’t get me wrong, PHP is a great language that I use daily. It’s powerful, widely supported, popular, and pretty darn stable. Recently, I’ve even had even more success with PHP by supplementing it with CakePHP, a powerful PHP framework that makes development a bit more painless.
Still, even with frameworks and new versions of PHP coming soon, how long can the trend last?
Are you wondering why I care so much?
The reasons are fairly mundane: job security, stability, trends, and money.
I value my career and work as a web developer. We (web developers) provide content to the voracious users of the web and I love being a part of the “internet revolution”. I also enjoy keeping up on the latest trends… I tend to prefer being near the bleeding-edge at all times. Why? Because it’s more fun. Also, I’d say that having a grasp of where the future is headed in web development can be very valuable indeed.
Back to my point: I’ve played with a few alternate languages outside of PHP, but I’m not convinced of their long-term popularity… they just don’t offer anything revolutionary. Maybe I’m expecting a revolution that isn’t gonna happen. Or, maybe I missed the revolution boat already.
So, you tell me; what’s the next revolution? Has it even been invented yet?
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:59 am
My bet is that PHP is still going strong for the next decade, and growing even stronger. There are lots of hyped up languages out there, but the hype will eventually cool off and people will then go back to where they come from. Remember Java? C developers who adopted Java have gone back to C. ColdFusion died off miserably despite the hype that it gets few years ago.
To me, it doesn’t matter what new languages pop up in the next few days, they’re simply *just* another language that uses a bit different syntax and slightly different approach to variables and functions, but they all accomplish the same thing. Now if a new language comes up with a unique cool function that no other languages offer, I bet PHP will quickly catch up and come up with their own version of that function, maybe even better. Ruby came out with Rails, the MVC framework, and then PHP suddenly came with two similar versions of their own MVC frameworks out of nowhere (CakePHP and CodeIgniter, and I heard there are more now).
So to be frank with you, I don’t see the need to adopt to another language when you’re already strong with PHP. But then again it’s no harm to be adventurous a bit and study other languages for fun if you have that spare time, apart from adding value to yourself
August 29th, 2007 at 10:01 am
[...] The Future of PHP: The Death of a Giant? | The Weber Report [...]
August 29th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I’m interested, when you said “My research reveals that PHP is the most popular web development language currently.” – how did you research that, and what were the top 10 languages used currently in Web Development?
Cheers,
Davo
August 30th, 2007 at 7:21 am
I agree with Zahasman and PHP will stay strong for a while until something new is developed, but I don’t think that there is another language out there that is more popular. I know that around 40% of the websites use PHP, but I don’t know what the other percentages of languages are out there. I use it everyday and I hope that it doesn’t die because I love working with it.
September 8th, 2007 at 12:18 am
@ David
Call it an overall trend I’ve gathered from reading lot’s of articles over the past few years (both print and on the web). However, I tend to consistently rely on Google Trends (trends.google.com) to see the popularity and movement of comparable things such as web languages in this case.
Check it out, it’s pretty cool.
September 11th, 2007 at 8:51 am
You know how much I love Ruby now, but I think I can offer a practical example of why as well. Ruby (and Rails) is the first language where I’ve felt comfortable and capable contributing my changes back to multiple projects. I have found that the code I’ve read from others has been easy to grasp in a short time, so I can make the changes I need to make and package up those changes for submission without a lot of fuss. Isn’t that what we always talk about — maintaining someone else’s code? I’ve certainly had to do enough of that over the years, and now I’d rather do it in Ruby than in any other language.
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:05 am
I’m porting over a bunch of online payment software from PHP to Lua right now… Why, you ask?
Well, PHP is fine and dandy, and I was an early public supporter of it’s use in commercial applications back in the day. But it’s just getting too slow and heavy for certain applications (mostly a scalability concern). I live and die by metrics in my field, and the numbers say PHP has issues. I think the core language itself might have certain limitations relating to speed and memory use. So, companies are faced with a simple choice: buy more hardware to handle the load, convince customers to live with slow services – or use something faster and lighter.
Lua might be kinda, well, weird at first. But it’s FAST (jeez it’s fast), and the ability to whip up modules for it in Lua/C/C++ quite rapidly give it an interesting edge. It’s kinda like the Java that never really arrived…
October 13th, 2007 at 2:24 am
At the end of the day, I think programming languages are only just a tool to help us achieve the goals of software development. Programming languages are disposable, but programming skills, practices and patterns will alway stay with us. E.g. flowcharting and pseudocoding skills should be equally as important as knowing any particular language.
If you are using language X, and it dies, it should be pretty easy to switch over to language Y, because you already understand the programming concepts and switching over should be something rather trivial.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Yes and no…you can learn new langs, but without the ability to show competence in said lang (and often some REAL code samples), job opportunities fizzle. Some programmers say you should learn a new language every year. That’s not a terrible idea. But having shallow knowledge of languages creates shoddy code. That has been a primary problem with php….too many amateurs try to write things in php and muck it up. Then people blame php. There used to be a lot of shoddy perl back in the cgi days, but you don’t hear about it as much these days. I am guessing there will be a lot of noobish ruby on rails code as well. Everytime the code takes you further from the metal, optimizations fall to the wayside. I think overabstracting the db layer is a huge mistake as that is where optimizations matter most.
When I hear people talk about Ruby on Rails I cringe. Nobody EVER talked about php that way. Php has always been an underdog. Even now, running half the web and tons of MAJOR enterprises like flickr, digg, facebook, youtube(frontend), people still complain about it. That’s fine. I like it that way. Php has always been refreshingly free of hubris…the RoR crowd on the other hand are like the Scientologists of the programming world. Reminds me of all the myths java promised and failed to deliver.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:19 am
What i think is there is bright future for PHP,Just simple test in google search by typing any technology name and hit search button then u will notice that search results for “php” is much more than that of any web technology.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
PHP is the best… I like because is open source and because has so many resources and a big community!!!
July 19th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Web Developers wana work. And if we wana work so doesn’t matter there is PHP, Ruby On Rails or ASP. Never depend on tools, don’t forget that PHP also need programming sense atleast. Customer need a chair of wood. You use which tool; doesn’t matter.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
EVERYONE
This post is very old at this point. CakePHP has changed immensely since I wrote this article and things have gotten much much better. I would recommend you learn version 1.2 (it is in RC2) and you’ll get to learn the best php framework by far.
Thanks,
Dustin Weber
October 14th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I work at IBM.com and I use PHP in my everyday work. I think PHP will only get stronger and stronger.
I never heard nothing here about “ASP”, “C#”, wherever. We use some Ruby and Pearl also … but PHP rules in Server Side Scripting.
Even Python can´t catch it up in practical usage. People here simple goes PHPing and forget about every else.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
ASP.NET is amazing, anyone who truly enjoys web development should embracement the robust framework that is .NET. Really is a powerful and fun to use framework.
November 15th, 2008 at 7:04 am
I used PHP for daily works here in my company. I dont know if i’ll go for another language. Ruby on rails is good and i felt better while trying on it. I really want to learn something new other than PHP, ruby on rails maybe, but i dont feel that it will useful for short distance since there is no significant reason to migrate from PHP to Ruby. One reason why i’m still stick with PHP is the availability of human resources. It will be easy to get PHP expert than Ruby expert since it’s still rather new here. In my opinion, everything is depend on the situation.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:32 am
helloeverybody…..
ya php is a very good scritpting language….i got recrutied to one of the companies when php was adopted for their current work …due to economic recession…everyone is planngin for cost cuts…so they are tryign to reduce maximum amount which has to be spent for software developement…php will be aalternative for them as its free of cost and open source …..so its getting better and better day by day many companies are adopting…php…yahoo is one of the top rands which has large scale implementation of php….google is to getting used to it these days…..
March 12th, 2009 at 6:35 am
I love PHP. Nowadays it is the heart of most of web sites.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:15 am
PHP future is secure but we must ready to any thing and prepare ourselves to adopt new technology ASAP.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:55 am
PHP is the most popular language for web development. It is better than any other server side scripting language, in my opinion. LONG LIVE PHP!
July 4th, 2009 at 8:36 am
i am a engineering student, loves php learned php’s fundas on my own, once anybody understand the heart of it, you will never get out of it…..its future should be superb according to me
July 27th, 2009 at 1:12 am
i like to ask that for what time the PHP wil remain in pakistan and what is the future of the php programmers all over
please and me at my e- mail address that is shaheen_e_iqbal786@yahoo.com