We need to talk about PHP

Something I have noticed that really bums me out is trying to find a language or platform that I like better than PHP. As a long time minimalist and having read Thoreau, I should know that “Comparison is the thief of joy”, but I frequently get caught in these spirals of trying new languages in the hope of finding the silver bullet that would allow me to leave the PHP world behind. The trouble is, I find the same or similar pain points and problems in every ecosystem that I have tried to date. Included in that list are old warriors C# and Java; as well as multiple scripting languages like Python and Ruby and new cool kids on the block such as NodeJs and Go.

Its not that I hate or even dislike PHP (though the internet would have me believe that I should), its just that I’m not particularly excited by it anymore. I guess some of this comes from having used PHP in my day job for the past couple of years so I’m reaching a point where there are fewer surprises and opportunities to learn new things. Don’t get me wrong, I know that there is still tons to learn about the platform and surrounding technologies; especially now that we deploy to the cloud, run serverless workloads and take advantage of many new PHP and framework features but I feel I have a solid understanding of the language fundamentals and this is often the most enjoyable part of learning for a programming language junkie like me.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to achieve with this post. Maybe this is just me screaming into the void but I guess what I am trying to get across is that it isn’t necessarily the language or platform that I am getting bored of, it is just that I’m not pushing outside of my comfort zone often enough or far enough to keep the excitement and enthusiasm burning.

TL;DR maybe don’t learn a new language and instead use what you know to push the boundaries a bit more.