JavaScript and PHP
There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.
I always keep coming back to PHP and Javascript.
I found that PHP and Javascript are used by people who get shit done.
- They are pragmatic
- They understand business needs
- They can iterate quickly
- They have launched and maintained many projects
There has been no shortage of cargo-culting in Web Development. So it bears saying, PHP8 is not PHP3, ECMAScript 12 is not 2010s Javascript.
Javascript especially has been a hotbed of innovation for years.
They may not popular for their elegance, but they have seem real practical benefits:
- speed and ease of deployment
- large choice of tooling
- large choice of frameworks
- many platforms and runtime environments
PHP, also because of its cgi-bin model has many benefits:
- easy to refactor legacy codebases in increments
- resource leaks are almost non-existent
- caching and scaling are a lot easier to manage
These languages also have a higher level of immediacy and there is a pleasure in finding ways to write elegant code in a language that doesn’t prescribe any.
They are also very flexibile and permissive, allowing people of different skill levels to get going with programming.
I believe writing good software is much more than the choice of language:
- Having good naming and design conventions and patterns
- Enforcing invariants with static analysis or unit testing
- Providing effective and rapid feedback loops to developers
- Strong team communication
Choice of language doesn’t have much bearing on any of these.