Re:Ask HN: Should I learn PHP in 2017?
by gregjor on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @06:54AM
(#13113934)
This is kind of like a carpenter asking if they should learn to use a different brand of hammer since a lot of other carpenters use that brand.
Customers pay for solutions to business problems. They don't pay for programming language expertise. As another commenter wrote, PHP is a tool, like all programming languages. Some are subjectively uglier or prettier or more fun than others. But they are transient. In 35+ years of programming I've used and forgotten a lot of languages, they don't matter as much as programmers think they do.
If you get the chance to build something from scratch and you honestly think using Python (or whatever) best serves the customer's needs (not yours), great. Besides the shared hosting setups and huge amount of legacy PHP code, it's still a popular language. It's easier to find PHP programmers to help or take over a project than it is with other languages and tools.
PHP and Python are more similar than different, if you have mastered one you can master the other. Then you have more skills to apply to business problems. Programmers who insist on specializing in specific tools are painting themselves into a corner.
Customers pay for solutions to business problems. They don't pay for programming language expertise. As another commenter wrote, PHP is a tool, like all programming languages. Some are subjectively uglier or prettier or more fun than others. But they are transient. In 35+ years of programming I've used and forgotten a lot of languages, they don't matter as much as programmers think they do.
If you get the chance to build something from scratch and you honestly think using Python (or whatever) best serves the customer's needs (not yours), great. Besides the shared hosting setups and huge amount of legacy PHP code, it's still a popular language. It's easier to find PHP programmers to help or take over a project than it is with other languages and tools.
PHP and Python are more similar than different, if you have mastered one you can master the other. Then you have more skills to apply to business problems. Programmers who insist on specializing in specific tools are painting themselves into a corner.