PHP is one of the most used programming languages of the world. It comes in different frameworks which take care of all the web development needs. However with popularity it has also attracted many detractors who point out at the loopholes in this programming language. Some of these arguments are genuine while others make uninformed comments on PHP. Of course PHP has its limitations but there isn’t any programming language in the world which doesn’t have limitations. Here let us try and study some of these arguments against PHP and why they aren’t as good as they sound. Also we shall analyze the benefits you can draw out of PHP.
It Isn’t Ruby on Rails
This is the most common arguments that go around in the developer’s community. Yes PHP isn’t Ruby on Rails and makes no claims of being so. And it is absurd to compare the Rails framework with a collection of frameworks that PHP is. There are thousands of frameworks in PHP which offer different functionalities and you need to choose the framework which suits your needs. Some developers simply make a bad choice and later criticize PHP for not fulfilling their needs.
The Object Model Isn’t Good
Which age do these critics live in? There were of course some problems with PHP4 when it came to object modeling but PHP5 which released in 2004 has rectified this problem. Most of these critics tend to make judgments based on historical facts and completely overlook the present day facts regarding the programming language. PHP5 supports all the object models and come complete with access modifiers, multiple interfaces which make it easy for programmers to work with objects.
Lack of Best Practice
This surely deserves to be one of the funniest of all arguments that is put against PHP. How can a programming language achieve so much popularity that PHP has without having so called ‘best practices’? The developers have put in a lot of efforts to bring in tools which help get rid of common errors in coding which those amateur developers commit. Tools such as e xUnit tool, PHPUnit aid the developers and enhance the quality of the end product.
Free and Free of Restrictions
PHP is an open source solution which has helped gain immense popularity among users worldwide. This has led to a scenario where close to 40% of all the websites in the world are powered by PHP. Being a server side scripting language it can be used to create dynamic webpages easily. Another major benefit that you can draw out of it is the fact that it comes with absolutely no restrictions. One can easily modify the source code to get the functionality that he or she requires.
Many programming languages claim to be better than PHP when it comes to handling your project but how many databases do the support? Often they would restrict you to a few whether you like it or not. This is another area where PHP scores decent points as it works with a range of MySQL database flawlessly and apart from MySQL it also can easily work with MSSQL, Oracle OC18, IBM DB2, etc. This way if you migrate from other programs to PHP it doesn’t involve extra cost and effort.
Mature In Implementation
There are many crazy frameworks which hit the market and promise the moon. Now these might seem very attractive on the cover using these frameworks can give you headache in the long run. PHP on the other hand has stood the test of time and has been developed over the years by a community of developers from all around the world. This has made it into a stable and mature programming language which will cater to almost all your needs with respect to web development.
To sum up, PHP is a robust programming language that has been designed to empower the web developers and it serves most of the niche web development needs. The PHP developers’ community offers you all the suggestions and tips that you would require executing a well designed and developed website. PHP is an open platform is many ways and thus there are no strict restrictions on the developers and this is the essence around which the entire programming language has been built.