Is PHP in demand in 2022?

Note: The things written here are all opinioned. It gives you a broad view of the topic, It’s just a discussion, and worth reading to know all the options left. Hmm, maybe it’s good to have your own research once, before deciding.😀

A little intro to PHP

Ahh, this part of this blog is just to help you to get some overview of PHP so that you won’t be missed out on further discussions.

• PHP is a popular open-source scripting language.
• Created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, and around the 2000s it became very famous because of its simplicity.
• It gets executed on the server.
• It’s used to build a simple and also very complex website.
• Guess what? Facebook uses PHP as it’s one of the back-end languages.

How long will it take to learn

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

Hmm, there’s a lot of things to learn. Just learning PHP alone won’t help you, you need to learn one or some of its frameworks, you need to learn one or some databases — MySql is the best guy with PHP. So, let’s assume that you’re starting to learn PHP alone, in that case, it again totally depends on YOU. Your grasping power, fundamentals on programming constructs, the number of hours a day you put into learning, and also your dedication and hard work matter.

One can easily say that you can easily learn PHP within a month, yes easily! 😄

But wait, there’s a catch! just learning through blogs, text-based courses, video courses, or whatever, won’t help you again. It fetches you just knowledge. You need to practice a lot, build some hobby projects, have discussions on any forums, etc. To sum it up, it takes a lot of time to be, hmm let’s say, intermediate in PHP.

Dominance in the world of web

Historical yearly trends in the usage statistics of server-side programming languages for websites

Let’s not beat around the bush! When it comes to dominance, PHP is definitely a king. According to W3Techs survey’s data, PHP is used by 79.1% of all the websites. That leads us to almost 8 out of every 10 websites on the internet are written in PHP. That’s cool, right?

However, we also need to know that it’s somewhat declining over the years. In 2015, W3Techs reported 80.6%. And in 2018, they got 80.2%, now that number has dropped to 79.6% on the 4th of July 2021. Here’s the source for that: W3Techs’ historical yearly trends.

PHP’s dominance still doesn’t stop there. Ever heard of WordPress? Oh, you must have heard it, right? WordPress powers over 34% of all the websites on the Internet, and that’s a lot of sites out there. Ahem! have you heard of MediaWiki(Wikipedia’s software), Drupal, and Joomla? they’re all written in PHP.😁

Photo by Frederik Löwer on Unsplash

PHP is absolutely not dying, remember the dominance up there. I don’t think that the numbers mentioned above will drastically decrease near future, but it’s decreasing. I don’t think PHP will be wiped out. I believe that PHP will live for decades to come, it’s because of many factors, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla to name a few.

As coming to the versions, it’s currently on PHP 8 released on 26th November 2020. They’ve improved, optimized, and added powerful features — Preloading, JIT(Just in Time Compiler) to name a few. So, there are still thousands of PHP jobs out there, which we’ll discuss further. With that being said, we can surely assume that PHP’s gonna fight for dominance.🙂

Pros of PHP👍

• Easy to learn — I think, PHP is the easiest language to learn. One can easily learn it by just referring W3schools website.
• Low barrier of entry — Since it’s easy to learn, anyone by just learning PHP will be able to build simple webpages, so there are lots of PHP developers out there, and easy to become one.
• Cost-efficient — developing and shipping a PHP-based project is very low. PHP with its MySql is free, and deploying such applications is not intensive.
• Vast communities and forums — if you’re stuck somewhere, there’s no need to worry. There are a lot of communities and forums to help you, besides these, almost all of the errors or issues are resolved in StackOverflow.
• Easy Integration — There are tons of websites that provide libraries, helpers, and other patches for you, so no worries. API integrations from third parties are very easy.
• Easy update — I don’t think upgrading from one version to another in PHP is tough. Remember, there will always be a tutorial for everything.

Cons of PHP👎

• Since it’s easy to learn, there are lots of PHP developers(which is a good thing), and also do remember, there will be a lot of bad developers too. It’s difficult to find good PHP devs from the pool.
• The fact — It’s becoming an old language, although it has dominance. And other languages have already taken over PHP.
• Since it’s has got low barrier entry, the pay scale for PHP developers is low.
• Nowadays, PHP is generally considered an insecure and entry-level language.

Reputation of PHP

Aww! To be honest, PHP’s reputation is really really unpleasant. There are a lot of developers who don’t like PHP. Nowadays, PHP has become a victim of criticism. I don’t understand why people hate it so much, in fact, it’s really good language. Just look at all the topics which we have discussed, PHP is still an option. Yes, we must all agree that it’s declining, and that’s because of its own flaws.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking right now. Why do people criticize and I still say it’s good. Let me be clear, It’s my opinion based on all the pros which we’ve discussed so far. I’ll still detail my opinion further, keep reading.

PHP jobs

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

No worries! there are lots of PHP jobs with a decent salary. You can still find a good job as a PHP developer, but do remember that the job pool is big. There are tons of people applying and you getting a job is challenging. This is all because of its easy-to-learn factor.

As I said earlier, learning just PHP won’t give you much. You must be familiar with HTML, CSS, databases, and also learning any PHP framework is a huge advantage(check out Laravel for instance).😋

So now, What’s the pay scale for a fresh PHP developer? Well, it again depends on your skillset, country, etc. I’d like to leave this to you, do have a quick google search and you’ll find it. But, I tell you, it’s generally low, and it’s because of its cons which have been discussed above.

My final thoughts

Hmm, now it all boils down to this. should you learn PHP in 2021 or in 2022? Actually, it really depends on so many factors. I can’t say straightforward, because it’s difficult. But, one can surely say that PHP is declining and not a good option for some. So, here are my final thoughts:

• If you’re a school guy— Learning PHP is probably a good one, that’s because you’ll, of course, be updating your skillset in your career. And PHP will be a backbone for them, and also to be noted your pay scale will definitely be higher if you learn other modern languages besides PHP and apply for a job.
• If you’re a college guy — Learning PHP may not be a good one, that’s because I think you might have learned other languages(or first language), and learning PHP on top may not suits you. I’d recommend you to learn Python or JavaScript because it’s driving the market right now.
• If you’re already graduated — Oh, there’s no other options left for you. Do not waste your time learning PHP, instead learn JavaScript or Python and you’ll be in a good position down the line in terms of experience and pay scale.

Conclusion

Here we go! There’s no definite conclusion on this topic. It all depends on which category you fall in and what you wanna be in. But, one for sure, PHP isn’t dead and it’s only, in my opinion, suits for entry-level. But, there’s a lot of companies that still rely on PHP for their stack, and that’s their wish and they have chosen it according to their needs. And there are thousands of PHP jobs and there will be for sure even beyond 2022.

Okay, I’ll stop here for now, and I’ll see you on my next blog. And please, if this blog has helped you and gave some insights, please give me a 👏 and share this blog. Thank you very much.

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