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PHP 8.5

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215 points brentroose | 5 comments | 20 Nov 25 06:07 UTC | HN request time: 1.044s | source
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darkamaul ◴[20 Nov 25 09:16 UTC] No.45990664[source]▶
PHP's evolution since PHP 5 has been substantial, and I think this is a real problem. As someone who learned the language years ago, the pace of change (generics, attributes, match expressions, typed properties) makes modern codebases genuinely difficult to follow.

I suspect this affects many developers who cut their teeth on PHP but haven't kept up. The language has become a different beast, which is a strength for the community but a barrier to re-entry.

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1. segmondy ◴[20 Nov 25 14:15 UTC] No.45992776[source]▶
It's a real problem with almost all software today, nothing ever gets done. they just keep piling unto it no matter how great it was. the idea of simplicity as a goal and feature is lost on this generation.
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2. tim333 ◴[20 Nov 25 15:17 UTC] No.45993475[source]▶
Simplicity may often get ignored but I think it's been a big reason for Python's success which has gone from about #10 on the TIOBE language list to #1 since when I started learning it, which was probably around when the XKCD "everything is so simple" cartoon came out. (https://xkcd.com/353/)
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3. segmondy ◴[20 Nov 25 15:25 UTC] No.45993579[source]▶
I have been programming in python since the 90's too. The success IMO is still that it retains the simplicity and CFFI. Moving up TIOBE is more of CFFI and the ecosystem.
4. okeuro49 ◴[20 Nov 25 15:40 UTC] No.45993774[source]▶
Doubtful it is anything to do with simplicity.

Python's success is explained by it being the language of choice for AI.

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5. graemep ◴[20 Nov 25 19:23 UTC] No.45996560{3}[source]▶
I think its the other way around. Python became the language of choice for AI because it was already popular. Lots of things made it popular: use for systems management scripts, web apps (Django, especially), then numerical stuff,...

I think the reason is that it is easy to learn enough to get things done, but it is very flexible, very readable, and once the ecosystem started gaining momentum (which it clearly had by the time of the XKCD cartoon) that became an advantage too.