Why PHP is Still an Important Programming Language in 2024

Why PHP is Still an Important Programming Language in 2024

·

5 min read

PHP has been around for over 25 years and has gone through many iterations and improvements during that time. Some may wonder if PHP is still a relevant language in today's modern tech landscape dominated by newer languages like Python and JavaScript. However, PHP remains a critical server-side programming language powering an enormous portion of the web. Here are some key reasons why PHP is still important today and worth learning.

Popularity and Ubiquity

One of the main reasons for PHP's enduring usefulness is its overwhelming popularity over the years. PHP powers around 79% of all websites with CMS backend code. This includes many of the largest and most popular websites like Facebook, Wikipedia, Yahoo and WordPress. With over 200 million live PHP sites, it is by far the most ubiquitous backend language. Familiarity amongst web hosting services and abundant resources available make PHP a pragmatic choice.

Easy to Learn

PHP has a relatively low barrier to entry for new developers with its straightforward syntax. For those coming from other C-family languages like C++ or Java, PHP's syntax will look instantly familiar. Concepts like variables, control structures, arrays are implemented similarly. Unlike JavaScript, PHP does not have some of the complex object-oriented features which take time to grasp. Useful functions come bundled with easy installation. All these factors combine to make PHP one of the easiest full-featured server-side scripts to learn.

Full-Stack Capabilities

PHP is capable of handling everything from server-side scripting to business logic to presentation. PHP scripts can interact with databases, process form data, dynamically generate web pages, and almost anything else required for web development. This self-contained full-stack development cycle in PHP allows rapid application development and prototyping. PHP has over a thousand built-in functions and a huge ecosystem of frameworks and libraries like Laravel and Symfony to facilitate full-stack development.

Platform and Hosting Independence

A key strength of PHP is its cross-platform capabilities. PHP code can be deployed on Windows, Linux or Mac machines with minimal changes. This provides great flexibility in choosing suitable infrastructure providers. PHP can integrate with all popular web servers like Apache, Nginx, and IIS for hosting. Shared hosting services widely support PHP apps because of straightforward server configuration. These factors reduce vendor lock-in risks and hosting costs.

Open Source with Great Community

PHP is open-source software with development overseen by the PHP Group. There is an active global community constantly contributing to the CMS libraries and frameworks built on PHP. Popular PHP projects are available for free on GitHub and package managers like Composer. This creates transparency, faster innovation, and continuous improvements to PHP tools. Support resources like tutorials, Q&A forums and documentation are freely available online.

Enterprise-Ready

Although easy to learn, PHP powers serious enterprise-level web applications due to its speed, stability, and scalability. Facebook uses PHP to handle millions of requests per second. Its object-oriented features, MVC frameworks like Laravel, and unit testing support make PHP robust enough for large projects. PHP has out-of-the-box tools to handle authentication, encryption, mail, sessions, APIs, and more for industrial systems. All these aspects make skilled PHP developers valuable in the job market.

High Performance

PHP is designed for web performance with its server-side script execution. There is no constant client-server communication typical of many other web languages. The PHP engine compiles scripts to bytecode for faster execution with op-code caching. Built-in functions prevent SQL injection and other vulnerabilities. PHP scales well on multiple servers or dedicated PHP accelerators. All of these compiling to static assets and server-side optimizations make PHP one of the fastest web programming languages.

Interoperability and Flexibility

PHP easily integrates with most external libraries, frameworks, and modern technologies. It works well with MySQL, MongoDB, Memcached, Redis, Node.js etc. PHP has bindings for many popular programming languages like Python, Java, .NET etc. This interoperability provides enormous flexibility to developers. Features like namespaces, closures and composer allow modern PHP code organization. The flexibility to use PHP in both procedural and OOP styles gives further options.

Evolving With the Times

Although rooted in simplicity, PHP is evolving to adopt features from newer languages. Versions 5 and 7 added many enhancements like improved OOP support, namespaces, anonymous functions and type declarations. The active open source community keeps pushing PHP's capabilities forward. Frameworks like Laravel bring modern MVC architecture to PHP apps. The language improves with each release while retaining its accessibility.

Applications Beyond Web Development

While PHP is designed for the web, it is also used to build command line tools, desktop apps and mobile apps. Using PHP as a general programming language, developers can make scripts and prototypes quickly. PHP can output not just HTML but also PDF, images, RSS feeds, XLM, and more. PHP is also being used for emerging technologies like IoT applications.

Supply and Demand of PHP Developers

Given its long history and popularity, PHP developers are still in great demand. Know PHP is a must-have skill for backend web developers. A language used on over 70% of sites has guaranteed job security. As technology moves fast, many institutions still rely on legacy PHP systems. This requires PHP expertise to maintain and upgrade those systems. The simplicity of PHP means junior developers can also acquire job-ready skills quicker.

In summary, PHP retains many advantages like ubiquity, beginner-friendliness, full-stack power, flexibility and speed that make it relevant for the web. The language balances its historical simplicity with modern features adapted from newer languages. With a thriving community and ecosystem, PHP will continue empowering the next generation of websites and applications. Though not the shiny new kid my kids new web project make him very happy, PHP is still vital to plenty of organizations and developers should add it to their skillset.