Is PHP really that bad? All my programming friends kinda despise my willingness to learn Node.Js or Ruby instead of python...

It’s as bad the the person typing it, if you have no self control over design patterns and write spaghetti code, php will let you, but that’s entirely your fault.

A lot of people dislike this, I quite enjoy being made responsible for my code and not having the compiler restrict what you can / can’t do.

You could probably just type random crap on the keyboard, and php will go “hold my beer” and attempt to run it.

Honestly, @C0D4 covered pretty good already.

To add into it, I would say that most dislike over technologies comes from personal biases and that there is nothing that really makes the case for a tech stack to be really bad. Yeah, you won't use php to write space shuttle software, but that does not make it a bad technology.

I find php extremely useful and powerful, but I am not a beginner developer, I have a pretty good idea of what I am doing and I tend to put a lot of consideration into what I build.

PHP is internally inconsistent, and has a lot of quirks and pitfalls you need to learn to avoid -- many moreso than every other mainstream language.

However, you can still build amazing things with it if you know what you're doing.

Also: Node and Ruby are awesome. You should totally learn them.

Languages are tools. Learn everything and have the power to choose.
And its fun too :)

@gitcherry learn cobol and repeat what you just said

@mt3o haha noone said you have to choose to work with the things you leaned :p

@gitcherry wise man said that learning cobol cripples the mind ;)

@mt3o meh, a good programmer would COBOL you up and down the street. Learn the art of programming, languages don't matter as much as people think they do.

@FlipFloop same goes for PHP.

@RememberMe regarding this particular language i think you overaggregate is functionality. It was never designed as general purpose language.

Come on, show how great programmer you are, set up a working cobol environment and code at least a simple cms backed by sql database! I dare you! :D

@mt3o sigh
If it has a way to do system calls, a way to express control flow, and iteration/recursion, I can do it. I'm not going to waste my time learning a new language just to prove a point to someone, lol.

Setting up a CMS and a database backend and all that are things of detail that just need some time to gather once you've got programming down properly.

If you want a proper demonstration of programming prowess, do Knuth's book The Art of Computer Programming and see your art improve by leaps and bounds. That book works in assembly. And you can create very nice, competent, well structured programs even with that. COBOL is still a higher level language.

PHP is awesome.

Eh, i think I'm too lazy to continue such discussion. Sending someone back to books, is, eh, below the level im used to deal with. I have enough of people who are talking about things they haven't any contact with. It's enough to turn on the tv.
Have a nice day, dude. Bye!

@mt3o lol.
G'day to you too :)