PHP - Best Language

What makes a great programming language?

Easy to learn

Longevity

Updated regularly

Helpful community

Lots of jobs

Good pay

(1 minute video review)

Developers generally agree that the basics of PHP are relatively easy to learn yet the language has the power and flexibility to handle almost any need.

PHP was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. So it has been around for 27 years and currently over 79% of all websites use PHP. It’s eight times more popular than ASP.NET, its nearest rival in server-side programming languages.

PHP vs JS for server-side language

PHP has been widely ported and can be deployed on most web servers on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge.

Since 2012 the PHP Development Team release new versions yearly to keep meeting changing technology needs.

Popular Websites Using PHP

Many big and popular websites use PHP. Because of this there are always jobs available for PHP programmers.

Job Listings

In the USA the average PHP programmer makes $93K annually.

2020 Statistics on Thriving Community

One of the things I like the most about PHP is the community. It's huge, very active and since the foundation of PHP is open source the developers seem to be extra helpful and friendly.

3rd Largest StackOverflow Community
StackOverflow is a programming Q&A site where most programmers spend a lot of time finding answers. Stats on July 20th were:

1,408,950 PHP lifetime questions

1,582 posted this week

172 posted today (07/20/21)

5th Largest Meetup Community
There are 1500+ PHP groups on Meetup.com totaling over 541k members. PHP is the 5th largest programming Meetup community. At meet-ups you can network and learn from fellow developers. Many meet-ups offer mentorship to those who want it.

5th Most Popular language at GitHub
The more useful projects there are, the more likely someone has already built a function you need and built it well, which will greatly speed up your development process. There are over 500 PHP projects that have over 500 stars on GitHub.

Quotes

PHP is still a great language because every year, the language improves. That dedication to improvement will give it longevity. A while ago, web developers complained that compared to JavaScript and other web technologies, PHP was slow. The response was the release of PHP 7, which solved the speed issues.
-Reuben Yonatan, Founder and CEO of GetVoIP

The PHP ecosystem is actively evolving and improving. There is a huge number of ready-made solutions (frameworks with a large ecosystem of packages, products, services; plugins and libraries, integrations).
-Vadim Belsky, Head of Web Development at ScienceSoft

[PHP is] still incredibly powerful in all the things it can accomplish in the area web software development.
-Bryan Osima, CEO of Uvietech Software Solutions Inc.

PHP is getting better with each iteration, PHP 7.4 is leaps and bounds better than PHP 7.3, and with 8.0 expected to be released in November, it’s only going to get better as it boasts the new Just In Time compilation (JIT) and a slew of other features.
-Deepu Prakash, SVP of Process, and Technology Innovation at Fingent

General Info

PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, but it now stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is a scripting language based on C and Perl which is mainly used for programming dynamic websites and web applications. As a language it is considered to be beginner-friendly.

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