Is PHP dying? Should I learn Ruby instead if I want to be a web developer?
 

or maybe I should learn Javascript since JQuery and Node.js are so popular.

An engineer told me PHP is shit now. Is that true or is it still a good thing to learn?

PHP isn't dying. It's probably the most widely used sever side application development language.

just learn to say, "Would you like large fries with that" ? :upsidedow

PHP will not die soon ;)

I think the best one is with the largest community and PHP still has the largest community.

oh nevermind
"PHP is used by 81.6% of all the websites whose server-side programming language we know."

http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php/all/all

http://w3techs.com/diagram/history_technology/pl-php

php isn't dying.

That engineer is idiot. He should back to school and start again :1orglaugh

language isn't dieing, it's more popular than ever, but that's really a downside... everyone and their dog knows php now a days, so your return on time invested learning php isn't going to be very high...

you can still do well with php, but it will take years to gain experience, build a good rep, etc.... if you are starting from scratch I would look elsewhere for easy $$...

think of it kinda like knowing html, it's good to know, but you are not going to get very far with it...

learn , python
php isnt really for multithreading, and not that really fast,

he said php is really slow and used the old FaceBook as an example

I would recommend you stop listening to this individual. Until you have at least 5 years of experience, you aren't going to be working on any projects where the speed of PHP is an issue.

Learn PHP and Javascript, learn to problem-solve, learn to communicate effectively, learn why testing and documentation are important, then learn to be rock-solid reliable. If you learn these things, you will have more work than you know what to do with.

ok, so PHP is #1 right now.
which language do you think will be #1 in 5 years ?

PHP :thumbsup

PHP + Bootstrap = Winning.

PHP is far from dead...but if you are to learn it... don't just learn PHP... learn OOPHP... learn some OO design patterns.... learn some of the PHP frameworks.. get to know how to use source control... especially Git.... Learn SQL.... learn how to use a PHP ORM... (Doctrine). Learn how to use Linux and run your webservers.

If you don't have a relevant degree then you could gain certification such as Zend PHP certification.. Symfony Framework Certifications... MySQL Developer Certification.... Linux Certification...

Becoming a developer requires a little more than learning the basics of a programming language... you need to understand the whole ecosystem!

Indeed.

Whats up blazin? Good to see you are still around. :thumbsup

I only hate that they deprecate some functions in newer PHP versions - this makes older scripts nonfunctional sometimes...
Why not make these deprecations optional... no full backward compatibility - that sucks a little bit.....

For adult sites? As most others advised, learn PHP + Javascript (HTML5+js+PHP) and you'll be happy. Optimised traffic trading servers are written in C, quite confusing one :)
I can not understand the Ruby mania myself, perhaps I am too old.

Python is cool and I use it to write my evil small scripts, but despite since a few years I always try to have new projects to be started from scratch in Python, in reality my (adult) productions sites are all based on PHP (even if may include also node.js or wowza=java pieces), mostly because they evolve from legacy PHP code pieces (cam sites, tubes or whatever).
I have mainstream services (no adult) with Java server (j2ee subset jsp/servlet), these was setup in late 1990's and early 2000s, and still up, but I would not advise Java on server really now, unless you are a bank or telecom... Java it was not updated in last 10 years - people use JVM more with Scala or such. A former java developer is now into C# and microsoft stuff, guess what.

About the deprecated PHP things - yes had to replace a few things on updates, but Python made even bigger changes! I mean tell me what you can update without issues.

PHP isn't dying.

PHP is getting faster with HHVM thanks to Facebook engineers

best place to learn php online?

that is really great advice, all of it. thanks

sites with tutorials.

With 80+ % of sites using it, perhaps that engineer is shit now...

LOL at 2:40 - 2:55 ;-)

Google wants you to learn Python... it's their language of choice

I like TeamTreehouse videos. theyre more engaging.
Lynda.com is ok but theyre extremely boring.

check https://www.udemy.com

PHP is definitely a winner when it comes to making variety of projects,but so far i never found a reason to go with other language,for example if i needed something what cant be done with php,i simply made it in c++,called it with system command in php,processed output and that's it.When it comes to speed,it is true how other languages are faster,but i believe how php can be same speed or even faster if you pay attention to your coding style plus if you use cache accelerator.And another question is what is your aim to accomplish - for example,if your goal is to increase chances to get a job - then you should go with java,since according to statistic java is most wanted language,plus it is paid 2x more then php jobs.
If you want to make commercial scripts,then php is only choice due it's market share and it is installed by default on every web hosting.
And if you want to make scripts for you own use(to run on your websites)then it totally depend on what kind of sites you run and what kind of data you process.
Also when it comes to javascript,it should be learned as well with php since you could say how javascript is some sort of "visual tasks addon " for php.

Nice wondering can you make money with it.

Many times when i was asking that question i was told how php.net manual is place to learn it,and that was kind a pissing me off since it kind a look poor with presented information.But the good thing there is their comment section,and many time i found proper example of what i tried to accomplish there.Beside php.net ,wc3school php section is good as well.

I think its just a snob thing with that engineer. Php is so common so he's snobby against it.
hey gfy is all done in php and its pretty fast lol.

http://i.imgur.com/19cld.gif

Nice gif :thumbsup

tried it already , not all functions are supported. but they are improving bit by bit

true!
gonna test some scripts'hits made by me this days and see how it works...

and - they say that it works - test wordpress and figure out how it handles with timthumb...

At Mentel we built many web applications, for startup to F500, and here's my observation.

Ruby on Rails
We used it many time, and it's a clean language. We actually used it to develop a program in this business. You can do awesome things with it, but you can also destroy an application, at the end, I don't think this is for beginners. For example, if you're a gem addict, well select them well because the day you need to upgrade your rails version, good luck. Most of the time they are no longer supported by the creator and the time you saved by using them at first, is eat by the time you waste making them to work. Also, choosing RoR as a development language is a thing, finding developers is another one. So if you're not a coder and need to develop an application, make sure you have some resources in your pocket in case you need to change your developer. RoR tend to be very pricy.

PHP
It's a language that has its pros and cons. At time we used it on a porn website doing 1.5Gb/sec and 600k/v a day, and no flaw. You can also use many good framework such like, cakephp, symfony2, CodeIgniter, Slim, Falcon etc. I personally like Slim and Falcon for the simplicity and the fact you don't depend on them. The big advantage of PHP is the amount of developers on the market. You should always have a friend who is very strong and do the code review for you though (if you're not a coder).

Python
Didn't used it very often, in my opinion very strong language, difficult to find senior developer, and not for beginners.

At the end it depend on the project you have. If you build a small website with a small backend and limited interaction with the DB, then RoR and Python are overkill. Most of the time people don't take the time to look at their needs and what the site will be in a year from now. If you look at twitter at first when they were on RoR and got very successful, they had to work with Scala as well, which is very very very solid language.

Anyway I guess you got the point hehe

In Boston area alone there is 350 jobs advertised for PHP developer with salaries from 50k to 130k. 230 of those jobs are 70k+. 55 of them are 110k+ and 22 are 130k+.

That's just one metro area in the US. I'd say PHP is not quite dead yet.. Granted they expect you to know more than just PHP, but obviously it's still wanted.

http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=php+dev...2C+MA&start=10

PHP is a very viable language, and in recent years there has been a major push for standardization of the language.

What's interesting is that if you look for just a javascript developer that number more than quintuples to 1,248 jobs
http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=javascr...l=Boston%2C+MA

and they earn more than a php developer
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=php+...r&l1=boston+ma
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=java...r&l1=boston+ma