If I were to list the programming languages that I am both proficient in and love to use, PHP would be at the bottom of the list. Yet it is everywhere and there is just no getting away from it for me. It would be accurate to say, I have a bit of a Love/Hate relationship with PHP.  When it comes to putting up a simple website in a very short time, there are a few applications written in PHP that I consistently find myself utilizing. This blog is actually built on one of those applications, WordPress. WordPress is a great tool, to create a functioning website in practically no time, so is Drupal. However, when I need to build a custom application from scratch, php typically isn’t in my toolbox.

It’s everywhere, I am constantly inheriting projects that were built in PHP, or having to tweak WordPress plugins and that’s where the hate begins. The funny thing is I teach a beginners web development class and guess which programming language we employ? You guessed it PHP, because of the sheer amount of PHP work available for beginners. Which leads me to the reasons why I like PHP.

Its Free
The investment to get involved with PHP is very minimal. There are other technologies that you can get involved with just that are free as well. But PHP has the perception of being free and easy on lockdown.

Super Open
The amount of developers willing to give away their code and sheer number of open projects is absolutely ridiculous. If you need a shopping cart, Forum, Blog, Learning Management System, Inventory Tracking System, and the list goes on simply type in PHP and the application your seeking into Google, and watch the results of free stuff role in. There are also open projects in languages that I would prefer to use (ColdFusion, ASP.NET, Python, Ruby). Some of these projects are extremely well written and nicely executed, yet the communities willing to give their time and code away are nowhere near the PHP community.

So I guess this love hate relationship will continue. #JustARant