PHP isn't the worst programming language, so why do so many people criticize it?

My thought is that these people don't even know PHP or a very old version like PHP 5.

Improvements made to the language the last years (already started with version 7) conducts to a better language... but, unfortunatelyv(or not in fact), everyone can start coding in php. Our code can be clean or... Old syntax, most of time, will continue to work and yeah, can be better.

If you code with tools like phan, phpstan, Rector, psalm,... You can force (yourself) to have a clean code while the language by itself is more permissive.

So, yes, PHP is a very good language.

PHP has ugly syntax.

C#

string nameAndFamily = name + family;

PHP

$nameAndFamily = $name . $family;

PHP has improved a lot over the years. Version 8 is much better than version 5 for example. I think the bad connotations with PHP come from it being many developers' first language which leads to bad code.

It seems that.one big contributing factor to the widespread "use" of PHP is WordPress. While it shows as being used according to the stats, I imagine there is less active development and more just running established apps like WorsPress on top of PHP, which drives up the numbers.

In my honest opinion, I've started my career as professional programmer using PHP. I even utilize PHP as daily scripts over my old machines to do such automated task like scanning file systems. Nowadays I may prefer to another programming languages (preferably a strong-typed language) for my professional tech stacks but that doesn't mean I left PHP dusted. Don't get me wrong but in my country a PHP programmer is still the one searched the most because it is easy to learn (and probably the most affordable solution for several companies). One of my reason to left PHP from professional tech stacks is due to its confusing type-juggling. It is okay if you do type-juggling with primitive data types like numeric or string, but things could got worse once you starts to introduces the "class" concepts (OOP). At the beginning, PHP does not intended to be used in OOP paradigm, but they tried to evolve to overcome the new challenges at that time. It is a hard days for me to try figuring out what class type one object is, what properties available, or even what methods I could call especially with a packages with less-to-no proper documentations available. Moreover, some companies doesn't care to help the devs working on the project as long as you can still do it using sticks and stones (or at that time, Notepad++). That leaves me blind for the time being without knowing proper IDEs that could help devs properly debug the codes. It leaves some nightmare even for today. Compared to nowadays, there are many programming languages that having its own pros compared to PHP. I finally shut the book of PHP and leave it into my archive for me to read on my summer break. When I heard that PHP now supports strong-type variable, I felt so amazed that they are still willing to evolve. But sadly that doesn't mean I could joining the pool again: newcomers could learn new things even faster but for older devs (especially those who already witnessing the hardest time) it'll be a harder. "You can't throw away the past, some will still exists even if you tried to forget the past and starts anew", that's what I learned.

Again, this is merely my opinion based on my experiences. You guys may have your own ups and downs with PHP. It's okay to learn again the PHP or giving another programming languages as your favorites replacing PHP. But just remember one's talk: "Thou hast thine own inclinations, and I have mine".

Happy coding everyone!

PHP is terrible and I love it.

• Wildly inconsistent naming, parameter order, etc in built-in functions
  • in_array(mixed $needle, array $haystack, bool $strict = false)
  • strpos(string $haystack, string $needle, int $offset = 0)
• Mind-boggling way of passing callbacks as the string name of the function... or even weirder, an array of the object and the string name of its method - call_user_func(array($obj, 'myCallbackMethod'));
• And my favorite example:

   function integer_division($n) {
       return ($n / 2) / ($n / 2);
   }

   integer_division(10); // int(1)
   integer_division(11); // float(1)

I encourage everyone using W3Techs statistics to actually read their technological overview and disclaimer. Many people citing the 77% statistic often suggest that this figure represents the number of websites powered by PHP web applications and sites. However, this is not entirely accurate. The 77% figure indicates that PHP traces were found on 77% of all checked domains. This means that even if a domain uses PHP for only 10% of its functionality and another technology for 90%, it will still be included in both PHP and non-PHP language statistics.

Additionally, the statistics do not differentiate between the scale or complexity of the code base. For example, a simple landing page using PHP and a complex banking application built in Java are reflected with the same weight, which can be misleading. As someone who works primarily with PHP, I don't think it's a bad language—like any tool, it has its purpose. However, the claim that PHP powers over 70% of the web is often misinterpreted, and it's important to understand the context behind these numbers.

I still think PHP is bad. It has improved, but the weird standard functions aren't going away, updating code between versions has a relatively high cost, and SemVer is not followed. Type hinting is an interesting feature, but type specifiers seem to create runtime errors, so you're actually like to create bugs not reduce them if you use it. The type system also doesn't seem complete (or nearly complete) like it's competitors.

Ultimately people should probably be steering away from PHP, and articles that suggested otherwise are likely a disservice to the community.

I'm a fallen in love with PHP. I've seen its evolution from 5.4 version (when haters had real reasons to hate it) to 7.0 version, when everything changed and PHP came of age. Now, with new improves of 8.2 version, PHP feels robusted and renewed, so current critics about PHP are, in many cases, outdated sign about language changes.

All languages have similar features only syntax may be different. What decides better language is underlying high level features. Example using all cores for processing, non blocking io like nodejs, or security in the complied application processor ide. Otherwise ayntaxwise what difference does it make