If you cannot see any advantages of Python or Ruby over PHP, then you need to really to brush up on both of these languages. It’s apparent you haven’t looked into them with any interest if you cannot see any useful features. Compare PHP5’s lacking OOP to something like Ruby’s true OO language, for example.

PHP is fine fine for small apps and rapid development. But from programming in languages like Java and C# and getting feet wet in Ruby and Python, going back to PHP is a complete chore. I will not stop using PHP until these languages are widely spread (which in itself may or may not happen), but that doesn’t mean I like it. (One thing I abhor is the million functions available in the global scope, just one pet-peeve of many)

I don’t see what you mean about “manageable syntax”. Syntax is irrelevant. I prefer C-style syntax, but it doesn’t take any considerable effort adjust (after all, developers are adaptable by nature). It certainly doesn’t make it any harder to “manage”. As for scale, if you think scaling in PHP is easy then once again, take a look at what these languages and their associated frameworks have to offer.

All in all, I’ve done a lot of PHP work (more then most people know about, I don’t like to reveal clients or work load ;)) and I know PHP is good for a lot of web applications and works well. But jeez, you have to look at these “next gen” languages and notice their advantages! It’s ignorant to think that PHP will always be around or will continually be the best at what it does. Keep and open mind, explore, and learn.

But enough of language wars, it’s as useless as browser or OS wars. You can keep developing in PHP as long as you want, and I can explore other tools to my hearts content. Nothing anyone says is likely to change this I’m sorry I brought it up in the first place, I don’t like having wars on my blog and it wasn’t the reason I made this post.

Unless PHP takes a turnaround? What’s wrong with it? All you sited was speed, which was an incorrect statement to begin with. That’s not much. PHP has plenty going for it. How about that its the only one of these languages with the sole purpose and designed from the ground up for web use? That alone means that it will always be able to stay ahead of every other competitor. (The only exception is ColdFusion, but I don’t really see that as competition considering its limited usage.) How about how easy it is to use for any scale of app? How about manageable syntax?

I see you’ve gone over to the dark side. Farewell.

lol “dark side”? PHP is fine, but I’m not going to stick by a technology that is inferior

Between Ruby (+Rails) and Python (+Twisted), PHP hasn’t got much going for it other then the fact that it’s used so widely. If you take a look at these languages, you will see numerous advantages over PHP. And come PHP6, where everything is treated as Unicode (and thus becoming even slower then PHP5, which is even slower then PHP4), I think you’ll see people exploring other technologies. If not sooner.

Ruby is just a craze right now and might turn up nothing in the end. But it might also give us a better tool for developing apps (hey, AJAX was just a craze too, and now it’s widely used). If not, we’ve got Python to fall back to (I’m still not sure which of the two languages I prefer).

Unless PHP takes a wild turnaround, I’m sick and tired of it!