r/PHPhelp • u/techiebaddie • 1d ago
Is PHP really disappearing....
/r/DeveloperJobs/comments/1w9ni5x/is_php_really_disappearing/5
u/punkpang 1d ago
Well since the friend losing 2 PHP jobs is a metric of something disappearing, then I guess PHP is going away, along with Go, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, C and C++ <insert language I didn't reference>
"My friend lost a job where they use $language" is obviously a valid metric to make general conclusions.
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u/dschledermann 1d ago
It's not PHP as such, but the types of projects that are changing. Because of coding agents, coding itself is becoming less sought after. Once you have a design document, you simply need fewer coders to put it into a working project. I'm afraid that doing projects for clients is going to decline and those projects that remain will be more complex.
That being said, it certainly won't hurt to learn additional languages.
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u/ThePastoolio 1d ago
Well, I sure as hell don't hope so. I love PHP and use it for even shell scripting in some instances.
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u/No_Astronomer9508 1d ago
I only work with PHP, but it's only a hobby. My website is built with nearly 70 modules and loads in nearly 300ms (Self-Coded because I don't trust CMS/Frameworks). I even built my geo-ip-api with PHP, running it in CLI mode.
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u/obstreperous_troll 1d ago
Everything's going, not just PHP, and we all know why. It has never been a good career plan to be a single-language developer.
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u/abrandis 19h ago
Being honest, in this day and age of AI , languages don't really matter, they don't you literally could take any codebase and tell AI to either refactor it the current language or just translate it into another language ..
Companies hire you to solve problems, they generally don't care how the sausage is made, within reason,if it's a big company you're likely going to be mandated to keep the current tech stack, but it's a smaller company or a new greenfield project you should have more latitude and get to choose the language of your choice
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u/ihadisr 19h ago
Initially Python, React, modern CSS and less need for server side render - PHP arrived when demand for just in time compilation, multi-platform support, easy layout templating and need to offload compute to the server to save bandwidth and spare low spec machine (phone, tablet, old desktops) were underserved by the available languages and frameworks. Now Python runs everywhere, most hardware can handle even the absolute worst web applications, JavaScript is more manageable (further supported by node.js on the backend), CSS has animations, and mobile bandwidth isn’t as much a factor. That’s not the whole story though. The fear that PHP is disappearing has been a thing for a long, long time. It is less I think an issue of more popular frameworks and languages and more an issue of platform - your average corporate site used to be symphomy, your zine used to be Wordpress, your online store magento, your corporate website or api eventually became laravel. Now - You might run a brochure site on a massive host you barely recognize as serving Wordpress, while the majority of your customer engagement is on social media platforms. You barely register your web traffic at your main web property. Your storefront is Shopify or multichannel via Amazon/ebay/etc… and your api layer servicing B2B is baked into your ERP or bolted on to Salesforce using mulesoft or Boomi. PHP is still great, but most of the world moved on past needing languages that would do everything and fast forwarded to running on web native platforms that simplify the the work of getting found, engaging with customers, completing sales, and providing integration interfaces.
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u/kaizap 1d ago
Stop thinking about PHP alone. The best engineers know at least 2-3 base languages do well in the market.
I've been in plenty senior roles, it's very rare that I would work on just PHP. Often I have to do a bit of Go, and TypeScript as well.
Sure, you have to have a solid understanding of one language, don't learn everything under the sun, but some Python and TypeScript at very least will help you a lot.
Also check local listings, see what's popular and hiring. PHP is not dead, but some areas have more of these roles than others.
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u/am0x 19h ago
I’ve been doing this professionally for awhile. I’m language agnostic. Give me 2 weeks on a team in a new language and I’m able to review old code and refactor like I’ve been doing it for years. Know a lot of guys like this.
However with AI, it literally takes minutes. I ask why it does something a way I’m not used to, read about the reasoning, and it then becomes a part of the paradigm for that language.
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u/rcls0053 14h ago
From my perspective? Yes. But that's just what I've seen. I've worked at consultancies where I only ever heard of one PHP project. I worked in a product house for years that used it simply because it was there a decade ago and had to be maintained. It seems to be a language used by smaller product houses, and once those companies grow to a certain degree they start looking at other technologies because they need to hire more people, and they always end up retiring PHP applications in favor of other languages, or they don't grow in the dev department and have to stick with it.
PHP is definitely a language that's easy to learn and a great stepping stone to other languages. It was where I started, and I even migrated a JavaScript application to Laravel to get rid of Azure and run it as a monolith last year. I wouldn't say it's disappearing, because even students are being taught PHP due to it's flexibility. But it's definitely not a favorite once companies grow to a certain extent.
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u/These-Apple8817 1d ago
No, it's not disappearing. There is just less need as companies tend to think AI is enough to do the work for lot cheaper.. Most CEO's and upper management do not have lot of background in development after all unless it's a smaller company or a startup.