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Comment by deckiedan | Hacker News Reader

Things I like PHP for would be single file simple scripts which are part of otherwise essentially static sites. For instance, a static blog (with Jekyll/Pelican/whatever) but a single .php file which is for searches (in a sqlite FTS cache of the blog, say) or 'related posts' or whatever. Then you can upload it into an apache "standard" web host, and add that tiny bit of server-side stuff that otherwise would be a pain.

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For a lot of developers that single file explodes into a large multi-file monstrosity as features are added and deadlines are put ahead of refactoring.

Have a look at Sinatra and Tornado. Single-file projects are possible as well and it'll lead you down a road to quick deliveries and better tooling.

Yeah. Pretty much all new projects I do are python (flask, actually), but I still can see a place for very simple PHP scripts - which I think was it's initial intention, and which it can still do.

The same for sh/bash. It's great for very simple automation/scripts, but after certain level, it's much much easier to use a language which helps you write maintainable code and doesn't actively try to stop you.

It's not that they're not possible, but if you want an "upload and forget" way of deployment, you have thousands of hosting providers with a LAMP stack, but only a handful of Python/Ruby providers like Heroku (or you have the choice of using a VPS, which again means having to manage it).

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