More than 20 years later, I still love PHP and JavaScript!

More than twenty years later, there are still many people who have a soft spot for PHP and JavaScript.

In the past twenty years, from C to Common Lisp, from Java to Python, from C to TypeScript, I have used more than ten programming languages ​​​​in my work, but I prefer those I have a soft spot for languages ​​of poor quality.

Why do you say the quality is worrying? Because there are indeed many things that people criticize about PHP and JavaScript: PHP is a loosely typed language, so it often breeds bad code, and the same is basically true for JavaScript and Node.js.

Even so, I still like programming with PHP and JavaScript.

Python is good, but PHP is definitely easier to use

PHP was born in the mid-1990s, even older than many programmers. I started working with PHP in the early 2000s, when it was just transitioning from version 4 to version 5. Later, I started writing applications in the CodeIgniter ZendFramework framework that I wrote.

In my opinion, the main reason why PHP can remain evergreen and show no signs of aging after many years is that it is embedded into new and old applications all over the world, and it is also embedded into developers regardless of age. in the mind. Some people have used it for a few years, and some have used it for decades, and PHP has left a deep impression on them. Developers will not disappear, nor will the business code they write, so PHP is still here to stay. And interestingly, Python was actually born in 1991, earlier than PHP. And despite its longer life cycle, Python has never been able to reach the current heights of PHP.

Why is this?

From a personal point of view, I think Python is more troublesome to use than PHP. This problem has improved in Python 3, but going back 15 years, Python didn't have those "fancy features" (functions) that came out of the box in PHP. Many features must be installed manually, otherwise they will be useless.

And another long-standing problem that has pervaded the Python language for a long time is the interval syntax. This syntax, in which the separation relationship is determined by the number of spaces between codes, is off-putting to many people. Many programmers like to separate their code however they like and simply can't bear the thought of the programming language itself doing this, and PHP does this very well.

What are the fascinating aspects of PHP and JavaScript?

In addition, there are more fascinating aspects of PHP and JavaScript, including the following aspects.

People who really do practical things use it

How to understand that PHP and JavaScript are very useful to people who really do practical things? In other words, for those who can understand business needs, iterate quickly, and have a lot of experience in developing and maintaining projects, PHP and JavaScript are two languages ​​​​that are necessary.

Years of development have allowed them to grow together with their own ecology

PHP 8 is not the PHP3 your great-grandmother used, and ECMAScript 12 was not written by your great-grandfather JavaScript. The ecosystems on which these ancient creatures depend have not stood still. Tools such as CPAN, PECL, and npm have accelerated the development of other languages. JavaScript has always been a hotbed of innovation, driving the emergence of new paradigms and frameworks.

Their quality is often compensated by other factors

Such "worrying quality" programming languages ​​are not originally famous for their elegance. They are more likely to be superior to other competitors in terms of speed, ease of deployment, scalability, tools, development community, frameworks, or platforms.

I prefer PHP because of its CGI-bin mode, which allows for the reconstruction of legacy code bases in chunks. It also provides easy-to-use caching and expansion methods, and developers do not need to Worry about resource leakage.

More interesting

These languages ​​can fail even on some basic problems, which means that programming with them will always give people the feeling of experimenting . Being able to write elegant code in an inelegant language will always give people the satisfaction of success.

All programmers are equal in front of these languages

These languages ​​do not have strict background requirements for programmers, even if they are novices who know nothing about it You can get a real website running within a few days. I grew up from copying and pasting basic code snippets to writing my own website using PHP2 and PHP3. Now I can use my accumulated experience to repay the community and help beginners who are just getting started. This makes me very proud.

It’s not arrogant to dismiss programming code written by a twelve-year-old or a young person fresh out of a coding boot camp. It is precisely because these users have a variety of educational backgrounds that imperfect programming languages ​​have a friendlier and more active community environment.

Nothing can stop you from writing good code

Whether it is PHP, JavaScript, Lua, or Perl, these languages ​​​​provide effective tools such as functions, variables, classes, first-class functions, etc., and some also provide additional traits and prototypal inheritance. An excellent software requires product positioning, software design, naming and design patterns. By strengthening invariance in static analysis or unit testing, it provides developers with a fast and effective feedback loop, as well as a good team communication environment. These elements are completely independent of any programming language. For JavaScript and PHP, they provide solid libraries, useful static analysis tools, and excellent IDE support. You may even find that they are more powerful in terms of tooling than many more "premium" programming languages.

I love legacy code bases

The legacy code base means that product performance is guaranteed, and it also means that I can make more immediate and effective optimizations on it. Improve. For me, there is nothing better than optimizing a product with other users.

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