PHP

Written by Ajay Kumar

Don’t say wrong about PHP.. i like it

Sometimes I’ve seen people say PHP is a bad first language, because it teaches bad programming habits. But is this actually true at all? Often those who say that don’t really like PHP themselves either, many times because of equally untrue reasons.

I think PHP is a perfectly good first programming language – I would even go as far as say it’s possibly the ideal first language if you are interested in web development.

There are many people, companies and developers who will discourage you to use PHP, but that should not bother you as they are all literally wrong. I share some common statments which you might have heard somewhere, or you will hear it somewhere.

  1. PHP is Not Fast: Man, if programming is done correctly php can execute faster than other programming languages. There are many libraries which actually does make your applications and codes run faster. Hip-hop for php will compile php into highly optimized c++ and provides huge performance gains. Of-course, you should know how to use it.
  2. PHP is not secure: Now this again is foolish statement. Security basically depends on the knowledge of person who is using the language. If the person is knowledgeable he can write codes which is quite tough to hack or crack. What is the use of make a concrete house, when you forgot to lock it. That being said, there is no application which is 100% secure. Security is just a mind game.
  3. PHP is for small applications: Who are you fooling man? Some of the world biggest applications work on php. Say for example facebook, yahoo, google, wordpress, wiki’s . May be you need some exposure.
  4. PHP has no scope:  Ohh.. Really.  More than 75% of the web is powered by PHP. If PHP doesn’t have scope what else have?
  5. Low salary with PHP: Now again, salary is not something which depends on language. It depends on your knowledge and your skills. Salary depends on the value which you provide to the market place. People  have been earning as high as $200,000 annually with php as a experienced developer.
  6. PHP cannot handle Loads: Thanks you pointed this out.  Do you think, facebook, yahoo, wordpress, wikipedia doesn’t get any traffic. How come and why come most of the top 100 websites of the world are powered by php?