I’ve been hacking in Python a fair bit lately, and the more I continue to use it, the more I appreciate its features. The enforced logical structure, pure object-orientation, namespacing and the python shell, are just some examples of great features that PHP doesn’t have. I spend most of my time programming in PHP looking up the syntax for the 4,000+ functions, and trying to do hammer out a logical OO structure to my projects. It just doesn’t seem natural.
So, I have been looking at Ruby/Rails and Python/Django to replace PHP as my web scripting language of choice. I have been using PHP since 2002 (7 years) so it was a difficult choice for me. It almost feels as though I am breaking off a very long-term relationship. And yes, I know there are a plethora of great PHP frameworks out there: Symfony, CakePHP and others.. but I think that it’s the language itself that is getting me down. It seems really difficult to write well-structured PHP code, compared to the ease of writing well-structured Python, and to some extent, Ruby.
There are a *lot* of jobs available in PHP at the moment, and not many in Python and/or Ruby, but I think this will change in the future. The majority of startups seem to want Ruby/Rails developers, and that means that it is seeing widespread adoption. Startups are also where I want to be right now, so I’m learning Ruby. I recently bought this book: Rails for PHP Developers . It is in the Pragmatic Programmers series, which usually means that it’s a book I’d want to read. It takes a conversational approach, discussing the relative merits of PHP and Ruby/Rails, and highlighting the differences. I’m finding it very easy to get into, and would recommend it to previous PHP-holics.