Ask HN: To what did you changed PHP? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: To what did you changed PHP?

3 pointsanonymous3443 comments

I've been web dev now 20 years or so. Designing and building tiny, small and medium web apps. My problem is that php is hated. I have a feeling there is something better? But for me it just worked nicely without needing to update all the libraries and deps every month because that's not what the customers are paying and that's not what I want to do. But now with php8x more problems are arising..

So what programming language and stack do you use as backend these days? 1. How much does it cost to run (small user base) php is like 7$ / month hosted, no need to maintain linux updates or any of that stuff 2. Does it need constant updating ? Haven't updated many of my or customer's apps in 5 years 3. How many times you had proken libraries and stuff debugging some errors ? with php and wordpress for example this is almost monthly 4. How does it scale ? for example to 20 000 - 200 000 daily users

Honestly, I'm still using PHP. Tried and true. Who cares if it's hated? Very few end users know, or even care, what it's built with. They care whether it works or not. Do you care if your house was built with DeWalt battery nail guns or a hammer? Do you care if your Uber Eats came via a Honda or a scooter?

Sure, PHP 8 has a couple issues if you're upgrading old code. But so does any code base. Beware of the greener grass. Be thankful you're not upgrading to python 3, angular, or anything that starts with "R" and ends with "eact".

Just because Hacker News hates on PHP doesn't mean it's the wrong tool for your job. It's clearly working for you so far, so it might be the best balance still. Remember that all of these decisions about systems and languages and frameworks are trade-offs of balance, not correctness. Also, refactoring in a new language will be more painful than supporting and maintaining PHP8.

I’ve been using python for a while and OMG having the object instance passed to every method is the hackiest thing I’ve ever seen. Php classes are so much better.

Don’t let them fool you. The hatred for php has no real reason to exist. Out of the 3 most popular dynamic languages (python, js and php), PHP has the best support for classes in my opinion. In python you have accept the object instance in any method AS AN ARGUMENT. Js classes aren’t even real classes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com