Being a web development agency.
PHP, the programming driving about 40% of the world’s websites has had a stellar year.
The one-time poor cousin of proper programming languages seems to be winning the web war through ease of learning, wide adoption, scaleability and future-proofing.
Its over ten years since Version 5 was released and now, in late 2015, the next major release is due. Confusingly called PHP 7 (version 6 never actually made it to release), the next version is likely to offer a quantum leap in performance as the new Zend framework sheds some dated restrictions.
It’s no secret that PHP has had some flaws, and around one in ten web vulnerabilities are through PHP hacks, but its almost universal adoption drives the skills marketplace so hard that most programmers and developers “know a little PHP”.
Famously, PHP is the server-side language of WordPress, which in turn makes it a server development language for everyone from the BBC to the GOV.uk to Sony. It’s also the driving force behind the world’s most popular e-commerce platform, WooCommerce.
But it’s not just framework-derived sites that choose PHP. Facebook, Wikipedia, Flickr, Tumblr and Mailchimp are all built around PHP. It’s fair to say that PHP pretty much runs the web-world. Others have had a crack, notably Python and Ruby, but PHP comfortably wears the crown.
We’re already planning our move to PHP7, have you started yet?