PHP general discussion and opinions?

I see a lot of people elsewhere on the 'net bashing PHP for various, trivial reasons ("It's ugly."), but not offering many (if any) alternatives or explanations.

What are /your/ opinions on PHP?

I'm.. Somewhat new-ish to it, having not built any database management systems with it, but I find it's pretty good for making functions to do something that would otherwise be redundant.

Example; I've made a function that lets me just define a file, and it will go read the file and display the code in a box. I'm sure there's loads of things that already do that, but I like building things myself.

PHP isn't ugly any experienced person understands that php is not ugly in usage, perhaps in  writing it yeah, but php doesn't define any aesthetic of a website. (If that is what you're saying)

Writing php can be ugly at first. Its not like a lot of the C Syntax languages but it is its own beast. Its all in how you write it which defines how effective you can write it. 

PHP is an amazing language for database management. If you're really driven to not use PHP you can try something like Node.js or ASP. 

Personally, I really like PHP. As far as code goes, it far prettier than Javascript. (But that's what jQuery is for.) I was just using "It's ugly." as an example of what I've seen people say about it.

I've got a database set up for testing, I just haven't started playing with it just yet. Do people hate on PHP just because other people do?

I personally prefer to work in php. If I need any JavaScript, I try to find one online. As a programmer I prefer working more behind the scenes which is what php does best.

PHP is so great because of its functionality with MySQL. The ability to use MySQL so easily (its literally built into the language) makes it a prime candidate for usage.

PHP is a powerful language because it does have functions like md5 and salt. The encryption is nice because its sometimes really annoying trying to get it to work with other languages.

ASP is a bother because its more inclined to work with .net frameworks. While .net is very useful and cool for some people its just not an option. A lot of corporate usage uses Java and .Net isn't the greatest with it. 

What makes PHP so great, is its utilities that it offers. And the quality scaling.

PHP is great, and _can_ be used wonderfully.  I love it.

That being said, almost all PHP you find in the wild —especially tutorials, especially especially php+mysql tutorials— is horrendous crap.  

And there are legitimate complaintsabout the language, most of which are a result of how PHP more-or-less "collapsed" into being, rather than being "designed" in any sense of the word.

*The facts presented in that article are well worth reading, though I obviously don't agree with the author's conclusions.

I personally like php. I really like the '$' used to distinguish variables from other parts of the code (although for most people its the primary source for bugs). Many people criticize php because its a "garage" language meaning it had no robust organizational/academic upbringing with a strict set of rules on what the language should and should not do. It literally originated as a couple of pearl scripts used by some guy to manage his personal homepage.

My only main complaints of php are that there is no multi-threading. The other day i ran into some php scripts on github that allow you to send snapchats (it was an api), I wanted to write a multi-threaded script to DOS my friends iphone as a hilarious prank where I would flood him with pictures.

you sir are evil so can i have the link to those scripts? you don't need php to be multithreaded. use the scripts to "auto send" when the page is requested. then have a small, simple, program in like java or C# do web requests to the pages and have them be multithreaded :) but seriously can i get that link?

https://github.com/JorgenPhi/php-snapchat

Oh wow thats true, did not even think about that haha. Have fun.

i've been developing with PHP for about 10 years now. it has its pros and cons. if you're very comfortable with it, learn MVC and use frameworks to speed up development and increase manageability and efficiency. i've used codeigniter for a few years and now migrating things to laravel. for web stuff i really like PHP. other than that, i'll try to write something in perl or python but i'm a total noob with those 2.