[dashr]

> PHP isn’t a great language, but it is a good language.

So what is a great language? If it runs the largest active user app on the planet (FB), the most widely used CMSes (WP,Drupal,EE), message boards, MVPs, etc. Why continue the hate, then end the article on how you've chosen it as the greatest option to run some of your systems.

[eik3_de]

Sure, FB, wikipedia, phpbb, wordpress. But when were those started? If you look at what's created today in startups and open source, PHP isn't a very popular language IMO

[dashr]

Lots of startups use PHP (with frameworks like Laravel4, CodeIgniter, Symfony) for their API and sexy new front end JS frameworks that they promote. On our current codebase, started in 2013, we decided to use PHP and have Ruby, JS, Python apps, where appropriate, that run on top.

Twitter, famously known as a Rails, now Scala, shop, has used php throughout its life (I know several php coders that have worked there). Their developer/documentation area is Drupal (acquia).

But moreover, as web architectures have become more distributed and JSON heavy, PHP has held onto its language position, especially with International devs.

As a CTO, not a employee, its also important to consider the salaries, roles of the people you need to build the platform.

SF Rails http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=rails&l=San+Francisco,+CA&rbt=R...

SF PHP http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=php&l=San+Francisco,+CA&rbt=Sen...

Then look at Non-US prices. Can't find a recent blog post where someone reported on salaries by language.

[Jtsummers]

Couldn't a similar rationale have justified (still justify?) Cobol in the 90s and Java today as "great languages"?

[vezzy-fnord]

Argument from popularity doesn't denote quality. I'd hardly say he's "continuing the hate", quite the contrary: him calling PHP a good language is likely at odds with most of HN.

Quite honestly, there's only a couple or so languages that I would truly describe as "great".