James Titcumb gave a presentation on the state of PHP in 2014. He provided a brief history of PHP from its initial release in 1994-1995 to the present. While some criticize PHP for inconsistencies and loose typing, PHP has succeeded due to its ease of use, wide adoption in content management systems, and ability to get jobs done. PHP continues to improve with new features and an increasingly active community working to further develop the language. The future of PHP looks promising with projects like HHVM and Zephir that aim to enhance PHP's performance and capabilities.

1. The State of PHP 2014
James Titcumb
Portsmouth Linux User Group
21st June 2014

2. James Titcumb
www.jamestitcumb.com
www.protected.co.uk
www.phphants.co.uk
@asgrim
Who is this guy?

3. Who are you?

4. A brief history...

5. 1994-1995 - PHP/FI 1.0
● Basic functionality
● Solved a problem
● Simpler than Perl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rasmus_Lerdorf_cropped.jpg

6. 1997 - PHP 3
● Rewrote parser
● Zend Technologies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zeev_Suraski_2005_cropped.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Andi_Gutmans_1.jpg

7. 2000 - PHP 4
● Zend Engine 1.0
● Big improvements
● Very basic “OO”

8. 2004 - PHP 5
● Zend Engine 2.0
● Better OO
● PDO
● Performance increase
● Adoption slow…

9. So… what is PHP?

10. What is PHP?
1
2
3
4

11. <?php
echo "Hello world";
From “Hello World”...

12. <?php
echo "Hello, " . $_GET['name'];
From “Hello World”...

13. … to Facebook
https://twitter.com/feross/status/459259593630433280

14. PHP powers
82%of the web
Source: http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language/all

15. Who uses PHP...

16. The Hate

17. ● http://phpsadness.com/
● http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
● http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-php-singularity/
● http://webonastick.com/php.html
● http://aurelio.audero.it/blog/2014/02/05/why-people-think-php-sucks/
● https://maurus.net/resources/programming-languages/php/
● http://www.bitstorm.org/edwin/en/php/
● https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/why-php-sucks
● http://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/.../why_do_so_many_developers_hate_php/
● http://www.quora.com/.../Is-PHP-a-badly-designed-programming-language
● etc.
Some People Don’t Like PHP

18. Some reasons...

19. Some reasons...
● Was not “designed”

20. Some reasons...
● Was not “designed”
● Many inconsistencies
○ in_array($needle, $haystack)
○ strstr($haystack, $needle)
○ htmlentities() … html_entity_decode()

21. Some reasons...
● Was not “designed”
● Many inconsistencies
● Loosely typed
○ int foo = 0;
○ $foo = 0;

22. Some reasons...
● Was not “designed”
● Many inconsistencies
● Loosely typed
● Seen as “amateur”

23. Some reasons...
● Was not “designed”
● Many inconsistencies
● Loosely typed
● Seen as “amateur”
● T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

24. Some reasons...
● Was not “designed”
● Many inconsistencies
● Loosely typed
● Seen as “amateur”
● T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM
● php.internals

25. Haters gonna hate.
So…
● Use the right tool
● Use what is comfortable
● If you like using PHP, ignore the hate

26. What made PHP work?

27. ● Easy to learn
Why it works...

28. ● Easy to learn
● Loosely typed
Why it works...

29. ● Easy to learn
● Loosely typed
● Easy to install
Why it works...

30. ● Easy to learn
● Loosely typed
● Easy to install
● Rise of the CMS
Why it works...

31. ● Easy to learn
● Loosely typed
● Easy to install
● Rise of the CMS
● Gets the job done
Why it works...

32. Then it all changed...
Rob Allen: https://www.flickr.com/photos/akrabat/54795045

33. ● PHP 5.3 features
PHP keeps getting MORE awesome

34. ● PHP 5.3 features
● PHP 5.4 + 5.5 features
PHP keeps getting MORE awesome

35. ● PHP 5.3 features
● PHP 5.4 + 5.5 features
● PHP-FIG
PHP keeps getting MORE awesome

36. ● PHP 5.3 features
● PHP 5.4 + 5.5 features
● PHP-FIG
● Rise of the community
PHP keeps getting MORE awesome

37. ● PHP 5.3 features
● PHP 5.4 + 5.5 features
● PHP-FIG
● Rise of the community
● Composer
PHP keeps getting MORE awesome

38. The Future of PHP…?

39. Things to look out for...

40. ● HHVM
Things to look out for...

41. ● HHVM
● Zephir
Things to look out for...

42. ● HHVM
● Zephir
● PHPNG
Things to look out for...

43. ● HHVM
● Zephir
● PHPNG
● Growing community!
Things to look out for...

44. Unstoppable Train
http://unsplash.com/post/71169964532/download-by-kholodnitskiy-maksim

45. Questions?

46. James Titcumb
www.jamestitcumb.com
www.protected.co.uk
www.phphants.co.uk
@asgrim
Thanks for watching!