sandrob57
It was very difficult to understand their thought process, and we were pretty much forced to find alternative services that had a more reasonable pricing structure. The amount they wanted to charge us for a few million geocode requests per month was bananas.
Was there really no value in keeping a customer like us around at a more reasonable rate?
I'm hiring Ruby devs down in Costa Mesa, and I don't ask any algorithm questions :)
I really enjoy some of the more flexible syntax and design choices present in some other languages. It also help that various job requirements over the year have required that I build a broader skillset. Finally, the growth I've experienced by stepping outside my comfort zone the past few years is probably the best benefit, which is a good experience regardless of which language(s) you start with.
In the end, however, as we both know, most decisions in software development are an exercise in managing tradeoffs. I guess the core of my argument is that, in the past few years, PHP has done a great job at improving its balance of tradeoffs.
Still, that's not going to do much to change public perception, and I guess that's somewhat fair. PHP has earned it's reputation, even if many (but not all) criticism are now largely dated.
I'm just happy I switched to working on other languages, aside from the occasional Laravel-based side projects.