And a significant number of financial and airline systems run on COBOL. Active usage doesn't make something more or less 'legacy'.

Brand new systems are being written all the time that use PHP and MySQL.

These are actively developed technologies that new programmers are learning all the time, with vibrant ecosystems of suppliers (like wordpress plugin and theme developers, or mysql performance consultants), that aren't showing any sign of fading.

Again, that doesn't compare to COBOL.

This is true. They're still subpar options though. I mean if you have to use them because that's what your team knows and you don't have time to learn something else, fine. But if you're building a new team and hiring for those skills you're making a mistake.

They're fine, as good as anything else right now. PHP can be very high-performance, and MySQL/MariaDB, when run in the strict modes (usually enabled by default now) it's ACID-compliant, fast, and still easy to administer.

I was part of a team that launched recently on C# (.NET Core) and MariaDB, but if more of us were comfortable with PHP I'd have had all confidence that that'd have been just as good a platform.

I don't see how it's a mistake. What wouldn't be? node.js? Something ruby- or python-based?

Use Python or Go. Better thought out languages, comparable or better tooling, libraries, and performance. A while back I would add ruby to that list, but Python seems to have won the market over it.

So, again if it's what your team knows best, it's fine. Otherwise it's a mistake.

I would like to argue C# is a well thought out language with great tooling, libraries and performance (not C(++) performance, but do we really need that if we could iterate 10x faster?)

The type system being static with dynamic support and reflection enables me to think about real problems instead.

I used to dislike GC languages, but working with C# changed my mind. (not saying refcounted systems aren't nice, I'm following rust from a distance)

I like C#, no problem with it as a pick.

I don't believe dynamic languages deliver on faster iteration over the long haul. I used to be the biggest dynamic languages fan, but now I avoid them unless it's a small project.

PHP is a mess of a language that's been cleaned up somewhat well, but it's still at such a disadvantage.

I would never advise a company to use it for a new project unless they have lots of talent very familiar with it already.

It's just a mistake. You can disagree, but know that you're wrong ;)

When I was a full time C# dev (after doing ruby for years), I found that ReSharper turbocharged my productivity to the point where I was faster with C# than I ever was with Ruby.

But credit to ASP.NET Web API being so solid too.

Now that I almost exclusively code in Elixir, I'd love to try F#.

i would like to see someone rewrite wikipedia in another stack and compare.