larisoft:
In Nigeria, it is taken for granted that any body who calls him/her self a programmer knows the PHP language. PHP rocks. There are thousands of already written free software implemented in the Language. There is a hug support base…probably the biggest for all web programming languages. And most importantly, PHP has a low learning curve.
However, except in the hands of those who know the language thoroughly (and because they know it thoroughly, they know when not to use it) PHP might be a bad language for any slightly huge project. Here is why.

Bad Concurrency
As a newbie, I churned out more programs in a week than I knew what to do with. Every program seemed so easy and I kept wondering why I would ever need to use Java or C# to write a web app. I then got a contract to implement an app which facilitates file sharing. This was no big deal. In a matter of days, the app was ready (with a lot of bad, undocumented code of course).
There was a problem though. Once up to 100 persons tried sharing files of (5mb+) at about the same time, a lot of errors sprung up ranging from gateway time out to connection to server lost. Once this happened, the user had to start over.

I realized what I needed was called “multi-threading”. This would have allowed the files to be queued for upload, eaten away in bits and pushed to another queue of files ready to be sent to clients that request for them. All this would be so efficiently controlled that a thousand people can exchange files, and the user can see a message like “too many people are uploading, your file is uploading but going much slower”. Or it could just show a progress bar (like google drive). I will also be able to limit the number of active threads, keeping some activities in pause till more threads are freed. The load on the server would have been so controlled,

PHP is just bad for this. There are libraries of course that simulate this by instantiating another PHP Instance. But you’d be simulating and you’d eventually move over to langauges that offer multithreading features natively.


Speed
There are lots of goody goody resources out there telling us that PHP’s speed is just as good as any other language. I wont argue. I will just show you facts and let you decipher the truth for yourself.
PHP is an interpreted language. Every time a page is requested in PHP, it is compiled and then the compiled code is executed. This means that your code is read from disk first, compiled, and then the compiled code is executed. Compare this to a compiled language like C# where the process for responding to a request is just ….execute!


Respect
Respect is everything in the lives of hackers. Introducing yourself as a coder whose primary language is PHP makes you look weak. This will affect the circle of programmers you maintain. The circle of programmers you maintain will affect the opportunities you are able to attract. If I may brag a little, rumour around town has it that am kinda a good coder. If you want to work on a project with me….I’d really love java or C# or C++. Its stupid….but you know…hackers value bragging rights.


Opportunity
Even though the job you will be doing most times will be restricted to PHP, many job offers will list perceived hardcore languages like C++, C, C#, Java as vital to the job just to scare off coders they perceive as unserious.

As tempting as it is to keep using PHP for all projects, Nigerian coders should work hard to stretch their horizon beyond it because when the game gets big...the language gets weak.

Source: http://larisoftng..com.ng/2016/07/why-you-should-not-have-php-as-your.html

seunoni34:

But Facebook & wordpress still run on php. How they manage to scale their apps despite the limitations?

maekhel:
OP your points are soooo 2010




As mentioned above PHP 7 renders all your points non and void

FrankLampard:
Let me spread mat and watch how this argument will unfold.

But PHP 7 has addressed all this issue. PHP 7 is even more faster than Python 3

Let's not talk about. HHVM

With a good PHP framework self your argument is pointless.

I know so many C# programmers, all they do is complain of bugs, but PHP programmers program on the fly.

truthsayer007:
The problem with PHP is its bad reputation, which will hurt your career in next 5 to 6 years if you keep writing it, your career is at stake.

PHP 7 will be meaningless
Because companies are now moving from MySql to NoSql Database, and moving from Crud to Event driven web apps and by the time they put adverts for job opportunities, you will not see PHP amongst the list of Stack.

Facebook now uses HHVM which is a runtime for their own language called Hack. So they don't rely on PHP that much.

So its either we all start learning new set of languages or start planning to become carpenters and bricklayers in next few years. Lobatan !

Scholar01:
Wondering why bros guru01 never show up

dhtml18:
Let me now abuse all of you guys - you dudes are concerned about language eh?
I guess you should be concerned more about creativity. Whatever language you use - do something productive with it.

Although, I use quite a good number of languages especially JAVA and MEAN-STACK, PHP is still the fastest one for me to use in a tight situation.

I see all programming languages as tools for developers to use. My PHPbrowserbox - http://phpbrowserbox.Nairaland.com/ - for example was built with NODE.JS.

onedayatime:
well, I can see that the OP is not proficient enough about PHP. So that is your opinion. I would have agree with you if you say 'PHP is not general purpose language and it is meant for wen alone', but, PHP can run from command line as well(as I would argue also). No language is bad, all languages are good. What we need are experience and all languages have their weaknesses and strenght. And all have where they are regarded as a major factor.