IMO, newer PHP is still very readable. I programmed with C++ for a decade, but I can safely say that I cannot understand a modern C++ code base anymore.

Most likely this can be said about a lot of languages, most languages are being maintained and improved. I am an hired expert in Java and I needed to explain some new languages features to some colleagues that have been introduced recently, I only mention them if they actually improve readability though. I think PHP might be slightly different than other languages as a huge amount of people use this to create their first website as a hobby.

I think PHP is way better now than it used to be. Learn PHP 8 and you are good to go.

This is true for most languages though, compare C# 14 with C# 1.0, Java 25 with Java 1.0, C 23 (plus common compiler extensions) with K&R C,....

PHP has no generics? I read somewhere that is was "too hard" to get right in PHP land, mostly because of how primitive the typesystem is.

https://github.com/AzuraCast/AzuraCast

AzuraCast because I like learning by looking at code and hosting my own radio/music

PHP is a very pleasant and straight-forward language to work with. I enjoyed my time working with it, though I did also see quite a lot of very poor code.

I think the danger with PHP is more its ability to easily cause *very bad things*.

This would partially be poor training (my University literally taught PHP with SQL-injectable examples), and I think the language itself making it very easy, such that less-experienced developers using it - most of them, early on - don't realise what's wrong until it's gone wrong.

With PHP being such an early tool online, and the above properties existing, it earned a reputation for being insecure and bad.

I'd take PHP instead of JS/TS + framework-of-the-day on the backend anytime. Ok, PHP is usually also paired with a framework (cough Laravel cough), but at least there the situation is more stable, not to mention more mature. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one making the decisions...

> A lot of people are too proud to be associated with PHP.

How so?

A lot of C# and Java code is oriented towards web backends, too. Which are quite big and complex. So it seems natural that languages in the same design space (trad OO) converge on similar features. I think the only exception these days is Go.

I think these days you could change "You can write Fortran in any language" to "You can structure your code like Spring in any language"…

Obviously you haven't heard of NativePhp :)

Still, even if it was "just" the web, why wouldn't it evolve? It's a great language, with a big user base, and there's always room for improvements and to increase the developer experience

The web is not getting any simpler.

I downvoted you before reading the fine article. I'm back to correct that.

The new array_first() and array_last() functions are nice, everything else is either reimplantation of existing features or "features"which will make maintainability more difficult. The pipe operator is one such example. I don't need it - these nested methods are not really an issue in any codebase I've seen. The new syntax only works for unary functions, so higher arity functions must be wrapped in an arrow function. It's a mess and more bug prone than just nesting the functions.

Yeah, the core ergonomics is significantly lagging behind most other backend languages despite improvements in some areas. I even wrote an article https://waspdev.com/articles/2025-06-12/my-honest-opinion-ab... .

As for concurrency/async, it's possible to do requests in parallel with curl_multi_*. Other async/prallel things are also possible, but tend to be more complicated compared to JS or other languages with promise and async support.

That is an anti-pattern, since it suffers from shell meta-character injection (and argument injection). Since PHP has mkdir, you should use that instead. And pcntl_exec() is the correct API for running processes.

The three dots in trim(...) make a callable out of a function, that was already in, so seem best to re-use that syntax, at least for now. [1]

As for the partial function application, there is already an RFC to add that, but it's not decided on as of now. [2]

1: https://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.first_class_callable...

2: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/partial_function_application_v2

I assume it is some inferiority complex, on many sides. PHP itself was laughed at being too simple, underpowered and inconsistent, now they overcorrected with types, annotations and breaking backwards compatibility with every release so that no old code base can remain intact. Frontend devs yearned to be regarded as real developers, which in their context means construction of unwieldly and overcomplex enterprise bullshit, thus typescript etc. And in the backend you have that same mechanism, devs having to prove they are no beginners and thus using (wrongly) design patterns, instructed by software architects, instead of avoiding abstraction and thus complexity.

No, I'm not bitter.

What do you mean developers should deal with functions like those? They're used when necessary, yes, just like any function. And no IDE is required. I'm really puzzled.

I remember the discussions at the time about which filename extension to use - and I can not believe that .php3 won. I think that I was the first to bring up the subject for PHP 4, to use .php again and not include the version number.

And a pipe operator, which is also being discussed in a number of other languages.