Is PHP the Secret King of Code?

[@Neithan]

So much feels *sigh* I'm a teacher in a top University in our Country. I proposed a new subject around PHP but was rejected instantly because "PHP is now obsolete" Created a small web development company with my wife instead last January and now making some decent MRR. Most projects that pay require the use of PHP. When clients need a "new feature" that is "aligned with their business process" we saw that it just means making a PHP script that can communicate with whatever "framework/library" they have and they're outsourcing the task to us because none of their devs know how to code exactly (these were the young ones who grew up thinking that "coding" is just importing plugins and libraries they can't extend) Lessons: (1) Universities are designed to chase the hippest and newest tech, even if they are useless (non-solutions to non-problems). This is good for convincing parents (if they see the university is offering something they can also see in the news or also hear as a buzzword, then they feel the Uni is on top of their game), but won't give you any spine/foundation. Look for timeless tech (like PHP) and learn how it works and build something that's actually useful to people (2) Don't tire of the basics. An array will always be and array. A variable will always be a variable. Loops will always be loops. Find the vanilla version of the tech you're interested in and just commit to knowing everything about it. (3) If you must pick a tech, pick one that's in for the long haul. You don't want the fastest (If I'm in for the long haul I can simply catch up in speed in a long enough time frame), You don't want the one with most features (again, long enough timeline I can develop as much features as competitor X). All our high-ticket clients have a question for us in discovery meetings that the low-ticket clients don't ask, and that is "how long are you gonna stay in this business/game?". We say "as long as we live". The right clients think in decades as do the right software. The world belongs to and is created by those who operate in a slow and thoughtful pace. To success and nothing less, for you who is reading this.🍻

[@robertmazurowski5974]

For small business it is great, will it scale.though?

[@bobfearnley5724]

I disagree with the point about universities chasing the hype. Teachers decide what they want to teach and most likely, they are older tenured teachers that cling to what they know from before. So university material is also lagging behind in this regard.

[@Neithan]

@@bobfearnley5724 Fine point. The nuance I'd like to offer is that no university will survive if it does not chase the hype. This goes beyond curriculum. For instance, the 2010 syllabi never had gender policies, 2016 syllabi never had data privacy policies, 2020 syllabi never had policies for use of GenAI in classes. Elective courses started offering platform specific subjects because our industry partners suddenly want people who know Rails (2010), Laravel (2014), then ReactJS (2016) and so on. These are hype tech and hype concepts. Companies that have Facebook pages 2010 were creating serious ads, now they're pushing out memes and getting more traction than they ever were. This goes for University pages as well. I get your point (heard you clear). I just have strong convictions because of what I've experienced.

[@Neithan]

​@@robertmazurowski5974 Time will tell. :) We're doing fine as of the moment both scale in terms of development and scale in terms of load our sites are getting. If we do expand and I remember this comment I'll let you know.

[@ricardodelacrvz1400]

exactly you cant javascript without mastering php....

[@georgekyalo1804]

PHP was my first language and I started seeing this myth of it being dead but when you look at the market . PHP developers are in high demand. Great content as always

[@DevlogBill]

I agree with you george 100%. I never listen to what social media platforms say about programming languages, the best reference is always the job market websites like indeed, monster, etc. There are plenty of PHP jobs out there and you even be surprised there is even an excellent amount of Ruby on Rail jobs available, the market speaks the truth despite what the KZbinrs may say.

[@duydatyds]

@@joecater894 cope

[@lns2490]

Big thanks to Laravel

[@joecater894]

@@duydatyds well, yes.. by not getting tied to WP forever. :)

[@Mads-hl8xj]

Also my first language, i combined it with JS and it did MAGIC for me... it was all i needed. I now stopped my WD business, but today i still believe its the quite the same.

[@radtn]

I love PHP man. Am a full stack PHP developper, i still use it since 2014 from scratch and i created my Own MVC and using it in projects of my clients. I also master javascript and i built projetcs with NextJS for fun, but for me PHP make the work so easy and fast.

[@overPowerPenguin]

Would you choose NextJS over Laravel with React in any situation?

[@joydeepbhowmik6181]

​@@overPowerPenguinprobably in every situation where SSR, sockets are not required

[@protapbarman2532]

Sir have developed a php project, just without framework, like old school, consisting diagnosis and doc appointment bookings, medicine purchase as main 3 types of products with proper scheduling system and everything is manageable in the admin panel, it also includes email and pdf generation. I have also worked with python and flask mvc framework with 6 friends. Now i am almost done with a codeigniter 4 project with 1 friend, it's about a pet-parlour booking system. Would you please consider receiving my resume?

[@JoseGarcia-vr8mx]

This is so true! It is thanks to PHP that I was able to get into the industry through backend development. Thank you, Stefan, for creating awareness in the community.

[@ripplesr5655]

I think I am in the same boat where you were. I am already getting some noises from employers since I started with php few months back. What kind of projects you built that got you hired? or is it something else?

[@besllu8116]

PHP + js is killer combo for web, I do not care what anyone says.

[@tuxlector]

I agree. And it's simply meant to be like that. Since the birth of js. Both languages are very powerful for their purpose, and both languages went trough a LOT of tough times.

[@ahsanjawed9543]

what about laravel with react?

[@wiedens-justociurlizza7766]

No PHP + Typescript ia the most powerfull.. i changed from js to ts.. i am from peru im web exporter

[@bestopinion9257]

@@ahsanjawed9543 Laravel with Vue and Inertia.

[@EricLaermans]

True. Tried nodejs... tried .NET with C# ... tried Python... omg. Back to PHP and everything works, alwas, also updating packages.

[@angelukpong]

Thanks sir. I was really lost. Now I know where to start. PHP.

[@StefanMischook]

Glad it helped!

[@privacyvalued4134]

Two little known superpowers of PHP are: Arrays and CLI. First, the PHP array (hash table) implementation is unique among all programming and scripting languages: Integer and string keys in the same data structure while _maintaining order of inserted items_ when iterating over the array and yet having O(1) for all operations. Second, PHP CLI allows for _system development._ Sure, you can run PHP CLI from cron jobs but you can _also_ develop and deploy root level, always-on system services that start with the OS at boot. Throw in PHP extensions (e.g. via PECL or roll your own) and you can expose any C library or system call to PHP CLI userland.

[@fullstacklarry]

What I like about PHP is that PHP devs tend to be go-getters and have an entrepreneurial mindset.

[@DevlogBill]

The community I tend to like are the following PHP, Ruby, and Swift. Despite the fact I am a Kotlin / JavaScript user, Kotlin having a decent very small community. But I am not a fan of the community of the tech I am using (JavaScript). But the 3 I already mentioned are a positive community. Unfortunately, I love JavaScript it was the language which taught me programming. C++ community is very opinionated about their quality of code and best practices, and I don't know much about the Rust community but lately I've been reading things on Twitter and watched a couple of videos about the Rust foundation and there is a lot of debate happening there, hope they fix that soon.

[@iqwebserve3973]

Yes, well said Sir! I come from 2 self-employed parents and used to invent stuff with PHP like crazy.

[@rotis9268]

Especially with Laravel is the best thing that happened, it gave life to PHP. Seeing what people said about PHP made me scared of it until I tried Laravel. Currently employed as a fullstack developer using Laravel and I love it.

[@legendsofevil]

We use PHP to serve millions of users without any frameworks. In terms of shipping out features fast, PHP works well for our needs.

[@malcomgreen4747]

How many servers do you have, please, and if it's just one server, what are the characteristics? i need information like this

[@lako2023]

@@malcomgreen4747 I have a side project that serves ~300k active users a month with tens of millions of internal and external requests (e.g. combining ~20 API's). Runs on a simple virtual server for 30 USD. And that's way below capacity.

[@vasiovasio]

What is the site?

[@vasiovasio]

​@@lako2023please show us the project, url?

[@RodneyKimbangu]

PHP "forever." The dependence on dependencies with the npm-related languages and frameworks put a bad taste in my mouth, so I stayed loyal to PHP.

[@michellewilliams1090]

Yeah I started off as a JavaScript dev but became frustrated how everything would break every 2 days.

[@privacyvalued4134]

Composer does the dependencies on dependencies thing. I hate it. A library should be simple and isolated and not part of some weird packaging ecosystem. Packaging is fine for complete software in its binary format. It's an extremely bad idea for software development.

[@domisPL_01]

​​@@privacyvalued4134 dude. If you want to drink some milk then you buy 1 L of milk or whole cow? Also: have you heard about "reusability"? Yeah, thats what packages and dependencies are for.

[@ElMatadoros]

​@@privacyvalued4134 you just literally described every unix-based system here

[@mosesnandi]

The bottom line is that you can’t get easier, cheaper and faster (dev time) than PHP. And that’s why it rocks!

[@kjyu4539]

simply it is and even was good enough for a majority of tasks... and it was simple and friendly... we need/needed to do many relatively simple things on the web server... so a comparatively simple environment and language was and is the best for many relatively simple tasks

[@seanharricharan7602]

I'm someone who uses PHP the most out of all other languages in my work and honestly, really appreciate it. PHP makes the simple thing in web development easy. I don't actively pursue learning about PHP in my free time because while PHP does the simple things easy it will get hard doing complex stuff and it isn't the pretties of languages but it definitely has it's place.

[@luisacosta3461]

PHP is a cool language. In Venezuela, there are a few job opportunities in the tech industry, and many of them require PHP skills. By the way, working remotely in Venezuela is better, and PHP is the language of choice for remote programmers here.

[@thommccarthy1139]

I work in javascript land but I've been dying to jump in to laravel when I get some time. Great content as always.

[@rickylart2619]

Laravel is great Man ... LoL . So damn great

[@busyrand]

I like Laravel too... Once I got over my issues getting it set up it was great.

[@insulastudios]

I've been using Laravel 4 years now and I think it's great

[@kevinuzoma4557]

You can always combine vue/react or inertia(vue,react) with Laravel

[@ripplesr5655]

@@kevinuzoma4557 Me too! Soon starting out with Laravel.

[@benpapadakis]

First, I learned Python, then JavaScript, and NodeJS. Now I started learning PHP and I already started loving it. What I like the most is exactly what Stef said. You upload your files and are done with it. Python and Node need a lot of configuration and setup. This drives me crazy every time I want to start a new project.

[@DragonRaider5]

That's why Docker became a thing, 100% reproducible

[@genechristiansomoza4931]

​@@DragonRaider5Atleast whether you use docker or not php is straightforward.

[@DevlogBill]

I agree with you! With PHP all you need is to create your PHP file and afterwards upload it to a web server provider and you are good! I've creating API's with Django, it is fairly easy to create API's or even CRUD applications. But when creating API's there is a bit of a process. You need to create the ORM, then a serializer file and a view file and don't forget your paths from the app to the project folder. Many steps.

[@myztazynizta]

I could never figure out hosting for JS. Where I currently host some old PHP projects I'd either have to double my annual cost to get a virtual or private server where I'd be allowed to run node and the company handles configuration and security of the server, or pay next to nothing and I have to waste a hell of a lot of my free time trying to build up the skills to properly secure and manage my own server. Neither option ever seemed worth it to me.

[@ddmozz]

PHP + vainilla JS + HTML/CSS - you don't need anything more than that.

[@madurandoaguamasos8961]

X2

[@ryhein]

I'd use React because of it's declarative nature, but I mostly agree with this statement!

[@websitelaunchcourse4061]

my goal is to learn these. Just finished CSS in Stefan's Studioweb course.

[@NeverSaid-]

​@@ryheinreact was a nightmare for me. I got more done in 1 day downloading the min.js dependencies and using vanilla js in a html file than a month of debugging npm react etc.. and the test servers crashed every 10 seconds too. So much for not having to reload the page to see changes. Might as well just create empty divs and fill them with content via normal js functions.

[@tempMahad]

That alone can solve 1000 problems

[@davidrowlands8548]

I love laravel, but being able to use JS on the front and backends were a gamechanger for me. I don't need to context switch between langauges so I become more efficient and less prone to mistakes. Mistakes which take hours to fix.

[@DevlogBill]

Maybe this isn't the greatest example I guess it can depend on the framework you use. From my personal experience content switching isn't as bad as I once thought it would be. At the moment I use Django for the backend for making API get request for my JS frontend projects. I don't know if the same could be said with Laravel and a JS library like React. Not certain but I think I was told that Laravel is a little more complicated than Django, don't quite sure. But once you get good with JS on the backend you should give another technology a try, what do you have to loose? I heard great things about Rails on the backend. That Rails allows the developer an excellent user experience. I never used it but I am interested in trying it out once I get good with Django. It is always good to explore new technologies after you are good at what you do already.

[@seanharricharan7602]

@@DevlogBill same here, and I have tried laravel before. Django was easier for me but not sure if ot's because python is a way easier language from my perspective and it easier to build reports and visuals from it.

[@DevlogBill]

@@seanharricharan7602 I noticed Django you can get up and started very quickly. I love the built in admin feature, it helps out a great deal managing your models. I may try out Laravel just to see what it is all about so I can compare it to Django.

[@kiambojyms2196]

PHP is great. Was the first server side language I started with and used it in many projects.

[@fcosantos]

I'm a Brazilian guy, and the PHP has paid my bills since 2013, right now I'm in Europe and believe you or not I'm leaving here with my family as a PHP developer.

[@fabiocorreagomes]

Very inspiring! I'm also a brazilian. I'm studying JS (NextJS, Adonis, etc). But I'm considering to start my journey with PHP/Laravel. Thanks for sharing your victory.

[@fcosantos]

@@fabiocorreagomes Fabio, já trabalhei com JS, Jquery, VueJS, Node paralelamente com PHP, e é tranquila a transição e embora que muitos digam que o PHP seja linguagem de sobrinho isso não é verdade a muito tempo. Eu gosto de ambos PHP e JS mas sei que o PHP indiscutivelmente é a base de muitos e muitos sites institucionais ou de profissionais liberais no mercado que pagam todos os anos por updates ou criação de melhorias além de atualizações de segurança, entre outras coisas como implementação de mecanismos de pagamento, frete etc.

[@user-bj4lp3fr1o]

I used to sell my VBA based programs from an order form on a website. But I wanted to accept online orders via credit card and issue software registrations immediately after an order was received. So I used PHP, HTML,CSS and a little JS to modernize my process. I liked PHP and it did everything I needed.

[@tiqo8549]

It's true. We use php in our company for over 12 years now, updated ever since, and runs just perfect. It's easy to code, can interact with every database we throw at it, and does it fast. For the last 12 years when we had issues, it was never php..so that tells how robust this language and it's modules work. Me and a co-worker were the only ones who were able to program in php, but a new woman at our company started to learn it for herself (in her spare time), and now 5 months later she understands how it works and even made small corrections to the code without breaking the whole system. By the way...i'm not a php fanboy..i like other languages more, but php just works. Period.

[@MgelikaXevi]

I stopped listening to those "no-life tech nerds" because they are constantly wrong about real life. You start with hippiest stack, everything is cool, then you start searching for a job, and then you realize, that "youtube\tech-blog life" and real business demands are SOOO different in how they perceive value of certain tech, and what they expect etc. One reason I am subscribed to Stefan - is because he brings that real life perspective.

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

I started my career, the first 12 years on PHP. I love it. Especially Laravel and as you say the eco system that goes with the language and that framework specifically. With all this said; PHP does lack a certain syntactical sugar that makes it truely annoying to program with once you get used to something like Typescript. That is specifically destructuring and the json object arguments that typescript has become famous for. The similar examples in PHP just do not feel or make it so easy as the Typescript does. All this said you are not wrong. 4 years after fully converting from PHP away on my daily grind, I still get boatloads of PHP job requests and its pretty obvious that top PHP developers will never have a problem finding work. I love PHP and I want to see it go onto better and better versions and i suspect given the time and continued development with various new features it will finally get all the love from the rest of the world as it will eventually have all the same features the other langauges have and thus its time to accept it as the true winner of all languages.

[@RobotBalok]

You right. me too.

[@TwoScottishReefers]

Your 100% spot on with this video !

[@ryhein]

PHP is king! I've been using it since 2002!

[@genechristiansomoza4931]

Php is an easy and straightforward language. I dunno why other devs hate it.😅

[@busyrand]

PHP is fun to me. I like the syntax and I think it's all pretty. I'm agnostic about these tools.

[@ahmadmokhtar8175]

Whenever I lose enthusiasm from continuing with the php language, I find one of your videos, and the enthusiasm returns again strongly

[@Sir-Mix]

I don't have income from my PHP skills but when I need something I'm doing by myself. Big love for PHP and for community ❤

[@SpawnSniper]

It’s true Stef, I was messing around with Python and tried some dynamic web forms, the circular imports drove me up a wall. I’m going to give PHP a shot now.

[@manuakasam]

I believe at this point all the other developer communities just keep on making fun of PHP as a dead and childish language, because they fear what we might be capable of in the future. Arguably, PHP evolves and develops more than any other language out there, without making it harder to get started with it.

[@skilled-person]

true, with the php8, what a speed.

[@privacyvalued4134]

There's a movie to this effect and it is one of the last hand-drawn animated films ever made: Titan A.E. Also one of the few movies in existence where Earth itself is literally blown up. Fun to watch if you don't like how politics are going at the moment where you can use your imagination to leave all of the politicians behind in the first few minutes of the movie. Also, Earth getting blown up is the _beginning_ of the movie. Now that I think about it, there are many parallels between PHP haters and the Drej.

[@TheRafark]

This is one of the reasons people think web assembly hasn’t added DOM support for other languages. People think that the people involved in JavaScript know that if they open up the DOM api people would stop using JavaScript and would instead go with other languages

[@QualityRecord]

Couldn't agree more. I find a can google any php problem and get the answer in seconds.

[@tobshashank]

Hahahah first time someone honest otherwise most will say php is dying 😂

[@liquidsnake6879]

It's also a perfectly fine language, there's nothing ugly about it, OOP PHP looks like pretty much every other mainstream server language. Laravel stands up to pretty much anything i can think of in terms of ease of use, feature richness semantics, modernity etc. And it's in PHPland. I feel Laravel is actually pulling people BACK into PHP because it just makes it such a beautiful thing to work with and it's so astoundingly easy to do ridiculously advanced serverside things with it The gripes that old Java devs have with PHP are literally things that haven't been common in the language for like 15 years now, PHP has changed a LOT since those people last used it, their perception of it is today entirely invalid

[@fiskegalendbpk]

Especially now with laravel octane, the whole argument about framework related latency just goes out the window

[@HALLOJUMBOw]

Started my first (real) job doing php development part time next to uni for the last few years. I don't think I could've chosen a better language looking at the amount and quality of job oppertunities coming my way now I'm looking for something more serious.

[@RobotBalok]

Still now I am working on PHP. I love it.

[@tombxoom]

Made a 25+ year career with PHP. Still going strong.

[@scott-richardson]

right on man! Same here

[@GodRockCafe]

PHP is a awesome honestly, regardless of what the hipsters say.

[@helloworld7796]

PHP has the biggest community and open source tools based on PHP. It's one of the oldest languages in the web, meaning there are many apps written by PHP. Meaning it will bring a lot of jobs. Plus it's a straightforward language.

[@stephenoshilaja365]

This is so true, my next goal is to learn PHP, I just kind of feel torn because I am still learning JavaScript (react).

[@innovativehobbysupply7600]

Stef, quick question, hopefully you can do a video since I admire your sage wisdom. I've heard the nerds talk about the 80% something stat of PHP backends for server are totally wrong and can't be counted on because its nearly impossible to scrape a sites backend stack. Thoughts?

[@illegalsmirf]

PHP core is nice indeed but I don't see any essential difference between strict OOP-style PHP (as used in all the major frameworks) and any other strictly OOP language (C#, Java) besides minor syntax.

[@totfosk]

in case this helps someone: I am looking for a job in Berlin, first one. Almost all offers (React offers; pure frontend) are asking for at least some PHP knowledge. It's EVERYWHERE. So maybe it's what I am going to learn next.

[@c3lli907]

I like it ! Im using Laravel and jQuerry(by choice) in my ecom project

[@Zubbee]

Thanks for this. Needed to hear it. Been learning php with @ProgramWithGio getting to 2years now (built a few apps) and I'm hopeful moving on to more Laravel soon. I've come across quite a number of php bashing online. So hearing from you helps to put things in perspective. I like js though, i like what it can do on the browser. But I've come to love php. My only qualms with php is that i have to stretch my finger up to get to the dollar sign when I'm typing a variable. Lol

[@toddboothbee1361]

Sad, but true. Sad for anyone who has completed a boot camp worshipping JS and React.

[@bigpickles]

I often chuckle when I see the php hate online, meanwhile making loads of $ from it.

[@Coolcucumber2]

I've been watching you for at least 7 years. I've only been programming for a little under 2. Idk what it is about you.. you're just a real cat. I respect it. Thanks for bein around Uncle Stef

[@scott-richardson]

PHP has been the foundation of my business (boutique web dev studio), and we custom build all our client apps and websites using it. We have our own in-house boilerplate/framework and our projects run circles around all the big platforms in terms of performance. We watch the trends come and go, and we simply just don't bother with things like React, Next etc etc. There's just no real reason for us to jump ship in our methodology whatsoever. If someone can give me a convincing reason to switch, I would. But a this stage, we can literally build anything our clients need, regardless of how complex their needs are.

[@Ian-zj1bu]

I taught myself PHP at 15/16 years old... 32 now and although I haven't touched PHP in a couple of years, I still love it.

[@MuhammadAdnan-sn1ct]

You are absolutely right. PHP makes development so easy faster and better compare to other beckend languages. PHP with bootstrap and little bit of javascript can every magic where others do struggle.

[@uopx-fezan]

PHP is a great and most popular language. My favorite language.

[@fotuneTechGlobal]

I'm halfway into my Nodejs ...I think I'm going to integrate PHP into my portfolio. Wish me luck.

[@funguy29]

WordPress or not I don't think it's controversial at all that PHP is Super effective for what it does. I have code going back 18 years that's still running flawlessly with little to no maintenance. And all the other advantages that you've stated. There is no controversy

[@grimmdanny]

I've been making a living off PHP since the 2000s. It has been good to me ever since.

[@ScorpioT1000]

Every strict-typed language is a gangsta till you have to parse/build nested array-object mess to connect another random API

[@apostle_allan_chizanga]

Hie, following from Zimbabwe, we getting into a period where AI is going to be part of every software , does that not mean we should learn python and maybe django or we can still continue with PHP and laravel and there is a descent way of integrating that app with AI

[@alephlau1483]

Symfony Rules!! Great Video!!

[@ernestojr.angeles9707]

Would you recommend PHP if you expect a good deal of calculation? I am in engineered mechanical systems. I had a dip on PHP but not sure if it is good for math.

[@ulrich-tonmoy]

PHP is used because they already have a ton of project in PHP so its better to have PHP dev to both maintain and create new project less cost

[@StormCrow1144]

You just affirmed my beliefs on the PHP matter, I'm a Laravel coder and dabble with Wordpress ironically... So the other day I was struck with feat to where the industry is headed, and all indicators are pointing to PHP!

[@SzymonRuszaa]

I have to disagree with you in that topic. I am currently searching for a new job and I see much more job offers that include Java, Rest, Python and .NET then PHP. This might be case for Poland and Eastern Europe.

[@TerragonDE]

i only learned PHP and didnt regret the last 20 years :)

[@edersalos]

"this video will piss off a lot of people" 🤣🤣🤣

[@4RV1DDesigns]

Symfony and Laravel really makes PHP shine at CRUD apps (which is basically most small busniess apps)

[@h0ph1p13]

Big business uses crud quite a lot too.

[@sheirralee3015]

one of many reasons is because php is flexible, you can set boolean then string then an array into the same variable

[@MojoTojoChannel]

I can't agree more...... so much noise and fad out there, i just stuck w/ the most practical, not the most beautiful.. not the fastest.. not the best.. didn't matter.. business-practicality is key in PHP. And the deploy-ability is amazing. From cheap shared server to dedicated, it just runs w/o a lot of fuss. I love developing on PHP... i dont make the pretties code but i get the job done - fast and efficiently. That said, I really pitty the new comers getting put off of PHP because of the "it's cool to hate php" culture.

[@KgfLikia]

I was reading about C# etc while my first job had some basic php. Years later as senior backend dev, using laravel with a lot of integrations google big query google storage, new relic queues horizon commands application services, I can say it is the best.

[@keithprinkey8575]

npm still has dependency issues. I just made a meeting finder for AL-ANON and used REACT APP and npm package manager and I can say that I had several dependencies that had to be switched to webpack!

[@jdalzate7390]

Is it possible to get a job as a jr php dev with no experience especially if you only know php?

[@suryabejibun]

I'm a flutter dev. For my own project, which I don't know will success or not, I ended up using PHP for the backend. And it's vanilla PHP. No framework, no package manager, no router. Just classic 1 file for 1 API function. Just need a few reusable functions to do common things like verify the request and giving well formatted uniform response. Code is very clean and easy to get it run. I can host it on a very cheap shared hosting. And with the new Git on cPanel feature, deploying is very easy. My node js co-workers never understand how simple and cheap it is to use PHP for early stage of a project. Of course when later needed, rewriting to js isn't that hard at all (and chatgpt/copilot can help a lot).

[@mauricevolaski2937]

One thing thing to point out is that PHP is strictly a server-side language. You still need HTML, CSS and Javascript to program the frontend and many websites require a database that necessitates programming that, too.

[@oldmedstudent1750]

so?

[@Rikco.337]

PHP was the first language I was introduced using if/else before I even understood what it means because I did not understand English nor programming. That was more than 20 years ago.

[@etiennelessard7125]

Php is my main language. I like it so much

[@pejko89]

I know Spring Boot and Vue. I love Spring Boot. Is there a point for me to learn Elixir Phoenix for personal projects? What would be the benefit and is it really faster to develop? Thank you

[@EudaderurScheiss]

i started php when i was twelve. learned it together with html/js/sql stack. php is one of the best languages when you want to do web. period. ive seen companies do their hompages in **cking react and nodejs. like really. the issue with php are its cms systems build around it. anyone who dislikes it has had experience with a cms. doesnt matter which, 98% they are a pain in the ass and everything is mixed together. (i now program since 20 years and have like 12 languages behind me). php is good. but if you want the smartest dev in the world to hate a language, let them do cms

[@Netz0]

The people that trash PHP as a programming language are the same ones that think MS Access is a database.

[@therealgunny]

I've been doing PHP for 10+ years, and the only reason for it is that I could always find PHP jobs. It literally brought me from nothing to almost everything even though I have the same experience with C++.

[@myztazynizta]

where can someone with let's say many years of php4 level experience go to find work? I looked at a few popular sites, replied to some posts, offered to charge next to nothing and still couldn't get the gigs.

[@nikitashutkov1804]

I like that you used computer science jargon I don’t know!

[@RJ-is9ko]

Stef, you're the PHP FINAL BOSS

[@muyivushafiq8389]

PHP is straight foward and can build legacy web apps.

[@AliRianiDeO]

Sorry guys, but I love php, because php has everything I need built in, I don't have to deal with dependencies and all that stuff and then LARAVEL comes along and makes your life so simple. PHP MAKES YOUR LIFE SIMPLE AND YOUR CODE STRONGER.

[@sfalpha]

Thing is I found that PHP actually have very comprehensive documentation out of the box, compared to other languages. And most if it's modern framework like Laravel, Yii or Symfony also do very good job at reference and guides. I have experience in Webapps dev for like 20 years since my high school. Written Perl, Java, PHP, Python, Node JS, TS, Lua, C#, whatever. I feels that, actually, PHP is very mature language, and because of that Dev that wrote most of framework also mature in Programming and do the right thing from the start (not counting antique PHP Wordpress code). And also because of NodeJS devs are like new in the game. Their framework mostly do shit things out of the box too, and with NPM, another people code depends on another shit things and so on. You find out the best Model and ORM/ODM Implementation out there are all in popular PHP framework. And when you hit NodeJS framework for the first time you be like ... OMG How these people live with these shitty ORM and tools.

[@TheRafark]

The language has some of the best docs in the market. Also, documentation for packages and libraries is great because you can literally browse the source and most of the time with type hints and return types, it’s very easy to see what a method does, requires and returns.

[@jct808]

Can you talk about why you don't like Ruby on Rails ?

[@rzar5476]

any recommend to learn PHP in systematic ways?

[@sawood2010]

I love Laravel, but how can you make it scale to 1000s of users in a single instance? I've been eyeing elixir/ phoenix but the syntax drives me nuts. I like my curly braces and ;

[@shawnfaison5118]

caching strategies for the most part , and no sql when appropriate

[@jamesbarberousse8396]

The current state of web development is in chaos. Frameworks, build processes, pre-processors, dependency management, and on and on. Remember the good old days when you just write some PHP, HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript and it just worked.

[@oohkumar]

PHP is basically WordPress and Laravel. Laravel seems to have taken off in the last few years and despite SquareSpace and Wix Wordpress is still favored for corporate and business brochure websites. So yeah PHP is still super important.

[@kjyu4539]

simply it is and even was good enough for a majority of tasks... and it was simple and friendly... we need/needed to do many relatively simple things on the web server... so a comparatively simple environment and language was and is the best for many relatively simple tasks

[@Rockodona]

To be fair PHP 8 is a solid language wich is great! The only pitfall I experienced was with PHP Frameworks, to be precise Symfony. It's a huge Framework that requires intensive learning to understand how it works and can be configured. That made the Framework massively unintuitive unless you dedicate to learn it inside out, which most devs are not keen on. Thankfully there are some frameworks like laravel that have a more approachable path.

[@c3lli907]

I guess i was lucky getting jumped in Laravel 2 years ago for the first time cuz i dont know any about Symfony

[@Rockodona]

@@c3lli907 Laravel is based of Symfony, the Laravel Team decided to leave out the symfony components that made it so undesirable and added more functionalities u might be familiar e. g node/express. Good news if you should ever have to work with Symfony you ain't that much of a tabula rasa in that sense!

[@h0ph1p13]

In my opinion Symfony is overengineered and does not bring anything more than Laravel to the table. Some people just get swayed by fancy sounding words like Design Patterns, SOLID and OOP. While those things have their place Symfony is clearly overdoing them and making developers lifes miserable.

[@Netz0]

When was this? 10 years ago? Symfony comes with absolutely nothing out of the box. Only the core. Then you install what you need on top of it. That means it's completely the opposite of huge. It's tiny and light. What you said was many years ago, it's not like that anymore, you just run commands to install things as required for your project, that means you can create a tiny API core, or a huge enterprise like Spotify (yes, they use Symfony). All those components are completely optional and almost every other PHP framework or PHP popular application from Laravel, Drupal, etc. use those some of those components. This is why some say they are based on Symfony. Yes, it is a bit harder to learn than Laravel, but it's far more scalable and enterprise ready. Laravel is more popular because it's easier for newcomers to PHP. Symfony forces developers to proper syntax and strict PHP code, which means it's usually more inclined to advanced PHP developers and preferred for enterprise and government applications. But more people go to Symfony from Laravel than the other way around because it's only normal to upgrade to something more complex as you keep gaining experience.

[@ohwow2074]

Uncle Stef, can one skip the whole JS world and jump on PHP? Like starting web dev using only PHP ecosystem.

[@insulastudios]

Maybe for back end development, while for modern front end development, JS is mandatory (and there are many great tools such as Vue or React out there). However, it is possible to start with Laravel + Blade, but I don't recommend it because at some point you will be limited

[@abhiram.adapaka]

4:41 Npm packages broken for every 2 seconds that's true 😂

[@lako2023]

Still comical to see so many (frontend) devs talking sh** about PHP regularly but then when being confronted with a modern Symfony 6.3 based on PHP 8.2 or any of the many solutions built upon that they are so confused about all the modern architecture, clean code, dependency management, quick project roll outs. They simply read a few articles or saw some code like back in 2015 and think that's got anything to do with PHP in enterprise solutions nowadays.

[@myztazynizta]

I remember a few years after peak ruby on rails hype, we had lost a few big clients to RoR shops and I got a message from someone at our biggest former client asking me to explain what the developers had said in an email. Short version, it sounded like they had no idea what to do with a CSV file. Hype is failure waiting to happen and hiding behind lies.

[@naranyala_dev]

To be honest, your argument is purely not based on dev trends, but genuine professional opinions

[@StefanMischook]

It's based on the market.

[@1122slickliverpool]

30 to 50% of the web runs on php. It's no longer a speculation.

[@themonster4759]

i like your videos alot thanks for making beautiful videos for us stefan your fans from arab meadle east

[@StefanMischook]

Glad you like them!

[@revx86]

Hey Stefan, do you have any resources on what it takes to build a saas?

[@StefanMischook]

I have videos on KZbin where I get into various aspects.

[@theosteknion6219]

Thank you Stefan for keeping us informed & updated. 🖖🏼

[@avnerduchovni6675]

Uncle! Thanks for great content. Please make sure you get enough sleep:)

[@StefanMischook]

😴

[@jozefvajdiar7916]

If shared hosting started to support node, I think that websites with PHP would start to disappear over time. Today, every hosting supports PHP whether it is a shared hosting or not. Node only has the disadvantage that the client is forced to buy a VPS or AWS to deploy the application... That's why Wordpress is so well-known because hostings allow you to install those spaghetti codes from wordpress cms with one click, if hosting companies would do this on node where some cms is installed that can be done the same way as wordpress with node, it would be interesting for the PHP community.