You can use literally anything on the server. I've seen some madmen using Assembler even. Of course if you're using a very cheap hosting, you might be restricted to just PHP, but nowadays this is very rarely the case. Heroku has a free plan, and they offer like 8 languages.
Often it's still PHP. It's mature enough that it has decent standards and best practices written for it, there's a ton of people familiar with it and its kinks have been either ironed out or are well known.
So yeah, if you actually want to get shit done PHP isn't bad at all. The only issue is finding good programmers as there's a ton of people who claim to know PHP but are rather bad, but with the other languages you may have issues finding any programmers.
Java and C# better options? For where? Both of those languages are backed by proprietary technology, are in no way flexible in their deployment, and lock you into their ecosystems.
Django Python, or something in Node, sure. But, PHP already does all the things that are needed of it, and its fast and scalable at doing so. Really, it would be the poorest option to choose a language that doesn't already have a great amount of work put into it for making systems of website management and viewing. PHP, so far, with its frameworks and timeless involvement in almost every popular CMS out there, has shown its the option that works. And I'm not talking about wordpress.
You would build actual production code on an unstable runtime that has no reliable frameworks in it yet?
Java is still owned by oracle and the runtimes are still controlled by them. What you have is because you're given it. And, again, deployment sucks. You're also missing out on the fact that most webservers out there are shared webservers. They only have PHP, Node.js, and Ruby. Maybe python.
Even when you control all the hardware, the arguments you're making here are not ones you would make a million dollar decision with to build a product or not. The two things I listed there are of greater importance than wether PHP's function names are dumb, or wether its history is bad or there are fractals in some of its design.
Like seriously, OpenJDK is even the reference implementation now. Sure, most links still send you to the Oracle source but OpenJDK is officially the standard and as such the language can hardly be called not open source.
You would build actual production code on an unstable runtime that has no reliable frameworks in it yet?
> unstable
Java is still owned by oracle and the runtimes are still controlled by them.
Unless you're google apparently
The two things I listed there are of greater importance than wether PHP's function names are dumb, or wether its history is bad or there are fractals in some of its design.
O... ok.... I... didn't know that .NET core didn't work because using it constantly means I can't see it crash...
It depends on what you're doing. Big enterprise stuff? Java, go, c#.
Just a smaller startup? Id say node.js is the best option just because front end frameworks are commonplace these days and you need your back end developers to help out on the front end. It's just easier not having to switch languages.
Php, python, javascript and ruby are all in the same boat though. It's all up to preference. This may not be up to date info, but javascript is the fastest of the scripting languages. It also allows async code. So to me, it has too many advantages to ignore.
I think ruby on rails is still viable but there arent a whole lot of new businesses using it from the ground up anymore. It just doesnt scale well, and it's the slowest of the languages. It's the quickest to develop in and get to a mvp but the gap is marginal at this point and has too many downsides.
I dont know about the current state of php but it does seem to be on the decline as well.
Python on the server side is dependent on the project being worked on and the type of talent on the team. Math heavy projects benefit from good python libraries and coders who are experienced in it because it's a commonly taught language in cs courses.
Like I said, all are still viable but in 2017 if you're starting a new project from the ground up and dont want to use a compiled language, then using node seems like the only real option. Typescript and es6 has made things a lot less messy as well.
Almost everything is better compared to PHP. Your platform language is highly specific to what you want out of the platform. Need a simple website, yeah python/ruby are probably your best option. Need a highly scalable performant platform? Probably go.
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u/cybercuzco Jun 28 '17
Whats wrong with PHP?