Why PHP does NOT suck.

Every post on HackerNews that even mentions PHP has comments about how much PHP sucks. How PHP can’t do this or that,how PHP is slow or how PHP once ran over their Grandma while she was crossing the street with a cane. I’m here to say that it’s a pointless debate. There is a reason why PHP still rules the world wide web. It’s because PHP is easier and has a great community behind it. To go from zero to I have my prototype ready to show investors is really easy using a basic LAMP stack.Setting up a cheap server for a client is really easy using a LAMP stack.Try setting up nginx and python or node.js, while not at all hard it’s not as easy as setting up a LAMP stack.

Sure you can write sloppy code in PHP. But you can write sloppy code in almost EVERY language. Python even with it’s strict standards you can easily write hard to maintain code. Just because the code looks nice doesn't mean it makes sense. There’s some Python code I look at and I go how the hell does it work. There’s some PHP code I look at and I go oh that makes sense even though it’s a little sloppy. Don’t even get me started on C projects.

Sure PHP is not always the best tool performance wise. But it gets the job done. We should stop complaining and just start building. If you don't want to use PHP then don't use PHP,but posting on every PHP post about how much PHP sucks doesn't make you cool. It makes you seem like a person who doesn't know when to use the right tool. A type of developer who will use a screwdriver instead of a power drill to put up a TV on the wall.

We use services and read blogs everyday that backend is in PHP and we don’t complain because the site just works. Next time you want to complain about PHP ask yourself.. Does it really matter? Because for every person complaining about how much PHP sucks because they like to write Python there is another person complaining about why they are using Python instead of Java… It’s just one of those pointless endless debates. Just use the right tool for the right job and sometimes PHP is the right tool for the job. A developer who doesn't understand that isn't a developer worth paying.

As always these are just my opinions.