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Liban Shire
Courses Plus Student 4,147 PointsRant about PHP.
So what is the deal with PHP? I mean I come from a background in Java and it seems like everyone seems to bash on PHP and how bad of a design the language is. Is this true?
I just recently started learning PHP on here and I kind of actually love it because it's so much fun, simple and results are fast. Is easy for me to follow PHP code since I've programmed in Java but also PHP seems to be really focused on one specific thing, making dynamic web pages only, is this also true? what is the learning curve like in PHP for someone with a background in another language?
Will there be future PHP courses on here? I'm really enjoying the ones on here so far with the shopping cart shirts project is a lot of fun with you can do with PHP and unfortunately I wasn't finding that in Java.
Java is really nice like I like the design of it and clean coding style but it takes a lot of boilerplate to make even "hello world" print in the terminal so I can only imagine what it must be like using Java for a simple web application, overkill!.
5 Answers
naz
857 PointsPHP has been around for a long time, it core ability is manipulating data, you can't use it for animations or creating games etc. This is not a bad thing though as it's very good at what it does and is very easy to use once you understand it.
People love to criticize everything, so I wouldn't worry about it.
John Locke
15,479 PointsHi Liban:
PHP isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and yes it is a dynamic language. Many people prefer Ruby for a back-end language, but PHP is very widespread and useful still.
If you already know a language, learning subsequent languages is easier. I can't really speak for Java, but I enjoy PHP so far.
John Wheal
27,969 PointsI started off learning PHP on my own and then I learnt Java at University. In some ways PHP and Java are similar but they have different uses and a lot of changes behind the scenes.
Chad Shores
Courses Plus Student 8,868 PointsUse what you want, get over what other people think. Life is too short to worry about that stuff.
Just make sure you code your chosen language well and enjoy what you do.
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest TeacherYes, PHP is a badly-designed language. It has evolved very organically, and it has a lot of issues. It's definitely not an example of pure computer science elegance. But you shouldn't let that keep you from using it! PHP was meant to generate dynamic web pages, as you mention, so getting a dynamic site up and running is a lot easier in PHP than in other languages like Ruby. Ruby is more elegant, but it takes a sophisticated framework (like Ruby on Rails) and server setup just to make a web page.
Yes, there will be more PHP tutorials in the future! There are two more sets of videos coming out in the current project, and then I'll be creating a third project to add a database and some Ajax functionality to the Shirts 4 Mike site.
Liban Shire
Courses Plus Student 4,147 PointsAwesome, PHP is a lot of fun and easy to use. I will stick with this language.