diff --git a/resources/posts/2024/2024-08-27-php-is-the-best-choice-for-long-term-business.md b/resources/posts/2024/2024-08-27-php-is-the-best-choice-for-long-term-business.md index 89850e2d7da..f05dbb5cd51 100644 --- a/resources/posts/2024/2024-08-27-php-is-the-best-choice-for-long-term-business.md +++ b/resources/posts/2024/2024-08-27-php-is-the-best-choice-for-long-term-business.md @@ -1,84 +1,121 @@ --- id: 416 -title: "PHP is the Best Choice for Long-Term Business" +title: "PHP is the Best Choice for Long‑Term Business" perex: | - Recently I've listened Lex Friedman [podcast with Peter Levels](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6KBpL2XfR9VdojbKNpE7cX). Peter talked about his technology stack to build startups - vanilla PHP, jQuery and SQLite. + Recently, I listened to Lex Friedman's [podcast with Pieter Levels](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6KBpL2XfR9VdojbKNpE7cX). Pieter talked about his technology stack for building startups: vanilla PHP, jQuery, and SQLite. - Hype is hype, but there is no better technology proof than a longterm usage. This inspired me to write my view about why PHP is the best choice for long-term business costs. + Hype is exciting, but there is no better technology proof than long-term usage by sustainable business. + + The podcast inspired me to write my views about why PHP is the best choice for long-term. --- -Peter talked about his hyper-focused way of learning new skills. Yet he never had the need to learn Angular, React, Vue or Next. It comes and goes. Do you know this joke... +Pieter talked about his hyper-focused approach to learning new skills. Yet he never had the need to learn Angular, React, Vue, or Next. Hype comes and goes. + +
+ +Do you know this joke? -
-A new JS framework is released every day. +
+"A new JS framework is released every day."
-But it's no joke for a business that run on it. +But it's no joke for a business that runs on it. + +## Hype-driven development? + +In 2016, a company contacted me to help upgrade their internal CRM. They used Angular 1 and wanted to go to Angular 2. It would require a complete rewrite. -## There is no Hype +Another path was to migrate to React, the "Facebook framework". -In 2016, I was contacted by a company to help with an upgrade their internal CRM. They used Angular 1 and wanted to go Angular 2. It would require complete rewrite, so they passed. Another path was to migrate to React, the Facebook framework for frontend rendering. Then it was 2018 and Vue become the new competition. Yet, another rewrite would be required to attract more developers. +In 2018, Vue became the new competition. Another rewrite would be required to attract more developers. -Next, Alpine... fresh stuff and new tutorials on Youtube on the same topic, just slightly different syntax sugar. This is a big problem for a business costs. Imagine having a house, where you have to replace windows before every winter. New standard, new dimensions, new style that doesn't fit the whole building and so on. +Next, Alpine... there are dozens of new tutorials on YouTube on *the brand new JS framework*. They have 90 % feature overlap, just slightly different syntax sugar. -## PHP has Long-term Stability +**This is a great fun for developers to learn and try new shiny things,
but a big problem for business costs**. + +Imagine having a house where you have to replace all windows every winter. There are new standards, new dimensions and a style that doesn't fit the whole building. + +## PHP has Long-term Stability you can Rely on + +Now, let's examine the same situation from the side bank of the fence. + +**What frameworks are used by majority of PHP developers?** +
+Symfony and Laravel. +
+Symfony 1 was released in 2007, and Laravel 1 was released in 2011. -Now let's look at the same situation from the other shore. What frameworks are used in PHP? -Symfony and Laravel. Far away from hype train, Symfony 1 was released 2007 and Laravel 1 in 2011. +Both are time-tested, community-driven, and, most importantly, still being used by businesses. At least based on the dozens projects we've helped to upgrade. -Both are time-tested, community driven and most importantly - still being used by businesses. I can tell, as we work with dozens of those every year to upgrade. +**We have 1 new PHP version released every year**, with a clear release path ahead: -We have a new PHP version released every-year, with clear release path ahead: +* 4 patch versions (e.g. 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4) +* followed by a new major release with BC breaks (e.g. 9.0) -* 4 patch versions, -* than a new major release with BC breaks +## PHP has Pro-Growth Competition -## PHP has Pro-growth Competition +* If a market **has one big player**, it's a monopoly that degrades into stagnation. There is no space for new players or evolution. Until Apple and Linux came along, Microsoft was the only player in the game, and it dominated with terrible user experience and extreme license prices. -If a market has one big player, it's a monopoly that degrades into stagnation. There is no space for new player and for evolution. Until Apple and Linux came, Microsoft was the only player in the game and it dominated with terrible user experience and extreme license prices. +* On the other hand, if the market **has too many players**, it's a battlefield where customers are lost in the noise. In such an environment, you can hardly find a stable solution as it will soon be replaced by a new, well-funded competitor. -On the other hand, if market has too many players, it's a battlefield where customers would be lost in the noise. In such environment, you can hardly find a stable solution as it will be soon replaced by new, well-funded competitor. +PHP is unique. -PHP is very market in this matter. Did you know it's the only programming language that has 2 strong framework players? **I'm profoundly grateful that we have such a market**. This competition that keeps both Symfony and Laravel work hard to improve and innovate. It also gives us customer to have a choice, based on personal feeling or preferences. +Did you know it's **the only programming language with 2 strong framework players**? **I'm profoundly grateful that we have such a market**. This competition keeps both Symfony and Laravel working hard to improve and innovate. It also gives us customers a choice based on personal feelings or preferences. -In the end, this gives business solid foundation that can be built on for a decade to come. +Ultimately, this gives companies a solid foundation they can build on for a decade. ## Healthy Ecosystem -This healthy competition has positive side effect in the community. Both organize couple conferences a year, where you can [meet great friends](/blog/why-I-migrated-this-website-from-symfony-to-laravel), find a job or learn new skills. +This healthy competition has positive side effects in the community. Both organize a couple of conferences a year, where you can [meet great friends](/blog/why-I-migrated-this-website-from-symfony-to-laravel), find a job, or learn new skills. -If you're working in vanilla PHP like Peter, there are [dozens of conference](https://www.php.net/conferences/index.php) a year across Europe, America, Asia and Australia. +If you're working in vanilla PHP like Pieter, there are [dozens of conferences](https://www.php.net/conferences/index.php) a year across Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. -The PHP ecosystem didn't get stuck original websites. You can build APIs, [desktop apps](https://nativephp.com/), [machine learning](https://php-ml.readthedocs.io/en/latest/), static analysis and tools that improve the code for you. It's full circle. +The PHP ecosystem didn't get stuck on bare websites in a browser. You can build APIs, [desktop apps](https://nativephp.com/), [machine learning](https://php-ml.readthedocs.io/en/latest/), static analysis, and tools that improve the code for you. It's full circle. ## Self-reflecting Technology -Last but least, what other languages don't have is advanced technology. [Nikita Popov](https://www.npopov.com/) came to PHP core in 2014 and [brought AST](https://wiki.php.net/rfc/abstract_syntax_tree) to PHP 7.0. It's not a new feature we can use in PHP, but it made PHP core code much straightforward to work with. It's similiar jump like moving from HDD to SSD drives, from CRT to LCD displays, from button phone to smart phones. +Last but not least, other languages lack advanced technology. -The problem is, PHP itself is written in C. Even the best PHP developer cannot code in C in a world language-level. If PHP would stop here, it would still be as good as its best C developer. +[Nikita Popov](https://www.npopov.com/) came to PHP core in 2014 and [brought AST](https://wiki.php.net/rfc/abstract_syntax_tree) to PHP 7.0 core. It's not a PHP new feature we can use, but it made PHP core codebase (written in C) much simpler to work with. It's a similar jump to moving from HDD to SSD drive or from a button phone to a smartphone. -In parallel, Nikita contributes another tool that accidentally solved this problem and opened up a new possibilities to PHP developers - the [php-parser](https://github.com/nikic/php-parser). +The problem is that PHP itself is written in C. Even the best PHP developer cannot code in C at a world language level. **If PHP stopped here, it would still be as good as its best C developer**. -
-Imagine AI that can be as smart to improve itself, -or robots as advanced and skilled to build better version of themselves. +But! In parallel, Nikita also created another tool. It opened up new possibilities to PHP developers—the [php-parser](https://github.com/nikic/php-parser). + +
+ +
+Imagine an AI that can be as smart to improve itself
+or robots as advanced to build better versions of themselves.
-I call this **self-reflection technology**. It's a state when a programming language reaches such a level it can improve itself. As far as I know, PHP is unique in this matter. Javascript has few such tools, but they are not consistent, because of so many language dialects. +
+ +I call this self-reflection technology. **It's an evolutionary level when a programming language can improve itself**. PHP is unique in this matter. + +Javascript has a few such tools but are inconsistent because of many language dialects. -In PHP community we have PHPStan, a tool that can find bugs in your code without running it. Is there a new bug in your project? You add a new PHPStan rule and till never happen again. Never. That's a readonly tool, like GPTs we have now, it doesn't work for us but its helpful at any moment we ask for help. +In the PHP community, **we have PHPStan, a tool that can find bugs in your code without running it**. Is there a new bug in your project that we missed? Add a new PHPStan rule, and it will never happen again. Never. It's a read-only tool, like the GPTs we have now. It doesn't work for us, but it's helpful at any moment we ask for help. -We have also Rector, a tool that can improve code for us and **upgrade code for us**. Most importantly, it can use the best world available knowledge to the moment. Has someone in India came up with a better way to write controller in PHP 9? They can create a Rector rule that anyone in the world can use, without any knowledge about controller or PHP 9. +We also **have Rector, a tool that can improve and upgrade our code**. Most importantly, it can use the best current knowledge. Has someone in India come up with a better way to write a controller in PHP 9? They can create a Rector rule that anyone in the world can use without any knowledge about controllers or PHP 9. -**All other language I know of are still stuck in read-only phase** - the new features of language are spread via articles, videos or conference talks. There is no tool you could run from CI and get your Python 2 project to Python 3. There is a tool that you can run and get your PHP 5.2 project to PHP 8.4. In case of vanilla PHP, this can be done in single day, fully automated. +
+ +**All other languages I know of are still stuck in the read-only phase**—the new features of languages are spread via articles, videos, or conference talks. + +There is no tool you could run from CI to convert your Python 2 project to Python 3. However, there is a tool you can run to convert your PHP 5.2 project to PHP 8.4. **In the case of vanilla PHP, this can be done in a single day**, fully automated. + +
**That's why PHP is the best choice for long-term business costs.** -## Open-source adaptation to the Future +## Open-source Adaptation to the Future + +I'm not saying PHP has the best syntax, generics support or CPU-level speed. It's about the whole package that business builds upon. -I'm not saying PHP has the best syntax, best collection and generics support or best speed. None of the language has. But all of the PHP technology/tools mentioned above are open-sources and not under commercial nor benevolent-dictator ownership. If something will change &nbdash; and it will &nbdash;, we can adapt. +All of the **PHP tools mentioned are open-sourced** and not under commercial or benevolent dictatorship. If something changes–and it will–, we can adapt. -That's why I agree with Peter and his vanilla PHP stack. It's not about the language, but about the ecosystem around it. And PHP has the best one for long-term business costs. +That's why I agree with Pieter and his vanilla PHP stack. It's not about the language, but the ecosystem around it, and PHP is the best for long-term business costs.