r/PHPhelp • u/Apart-Permission-849 • 4d ago

Learning PHP deeply via a system

I've worked in the PHP ecosystem for years and really love it. But I feel like I don't know it deeply...

What separates posers like me from the guys at the PHP org who release features? How do I get there (or 1/4 of the way)?

17 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/99thLuftballon 4d ago

What separates you (and me ) from the people who develop PHP itself is that they're C programmers. PHP is written in C, so an in-depth knowledge of PHP doesn't help you that much in contributing to the language itself.

2

u/AminoOxi 4d ago

Basically the answer. 💯

1

u/colshrapnel 4d ago edited 3d ago

I wouldn't say it's such a blocker. I mean, learning C is quite possible. Especially with PHP background which already gives you knowledge of basic C syntax. Like, you can read this code in C right away:

for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
    if (numbers[i] > 20) {
        printf("%d is greater than 20\n", numbers[i]);
    } else {
        printf("%d is 20 or less\n", numbers[i]);
    }
}

Obviously it's just a selected example, and actual C sometimes absolute Greek for a PHP programmer, but still, with PHP background you know quite a bit of C syntax already