--- title: "PHP Sucks" url: https://thecancerus.com/php-sucks/ date: 2008-07-01 modified: 2008-07-01 author: "ican" description: "It seems like their is a new Cool wave flowing in the developer community which involves finding reasons to say PHP sucks. Everyone worth his salt is trying to get..." categories: - "php" word_count: 618 --- # PHP Sucks It seems like their is a new Cool wave flowing in the developer community which involves finding reasons to say PHP sucks. Everyone worth his salt is trying to get ahead in finding new reasons to put it down. So I thought why not I compile some of the good articles from bunch of these people. Here is my favorite quote from one such article: > So here’s my problem, based on my limited experience with PHP (deploying a couple of free apps to do this and that, and debugging a site for a non-technical friend here and there): all the PHP code I’ve seen in that experience has been messy, unmaintainable crap. Spaghetti SQL wrapped in spaghetti PHP wrapped in spaghetti HTML, replicated in slightly-varying form in dozens of places. > By [Tim Bray](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/02/17/PHP) Here is a small list of reasons why these cool people think that PHP sucks...  read it yourself and decide - [I’m sorry, but PHP sucks ](http://maurus.net/resources/programming-languages/php/) - [I hate PHP... just hate it. Hate it hate it hate it](http://keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2003/Aug/13/HATE-PHP) - [What I don't like about PHP](http://www.bitstorm.org/edwin/en/php/) - [PHP Sucks, But It Doesn't Matter ](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001119.html) - [Experiences of Using PHP in Large Websites](http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/papers/html/php/) - [PHP is the new VB6 in a C dress ](http://loveandtheft.org/2008/05/20/php-is-the-new-vb6-in-a-c-dress/) - [I hated php back when it was cool ](http://destraynor.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/51-I-hated-php-back-when-it-was-cool.html) - [PHP, I just don't like it ](http://destraynor.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/11-PHP,-I-just-dont-like-it..html) - [Why PHP sucks, Part III](http://www.dasgenie.com/scrap/archives/000060.html) If you know me then you must be thinking about a list of similar articles to help debunk their claims, but no I won't do that. Why? Simply because if you go through all the articles you will see it yourself. I think PHP, when I think Web Application. I have read all these articles but I still can't see a good reason for "why PHP sucks". I agree that their are some drawbacks in PHP but then you have to agree that PHP is just a scripting language, which was written for building web applications quickly, and nothing else. I like it because it allows me to show myself in my codes. By looking at the code of a PHP developer you can easily decide where he stands. As the language does not enforce any thing, it requires a good discipline and programming practices to write a good piece of code in  PHP, which means you can easily segregate, good from bad. In other languages it is not possible as they force similar coding style. But this is not the only reason why I like PHP, I like it because it is build for Web, It was created to get thing done in simplest possible manner. To quote again > It will give you the freedom to achieve what you want, how you want, with results. > By [Akash Mehta](http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/06/08/last-we-checked-php-is-a-framework/) Since I did not want to be left out of this cool club which involves members like [Jeff Atwood](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/), and I can't find anything against PHP that prevents me from using it, So PHP sucks... PHP sucks... PHP sucks... PHP sucks... PHP sucks... Here I have said it 8 times that PHP sucks..., 9th if you count this also. Now can I join the club? I also want to look cool, you see I have said it 9 times. Do you want me to say one more time?OK , PHP sucks... Now? Well I hope I have satisfied the criteria to join this elitists club as junior member, because in truth I don't see why PHP sucks. **UPDATE:**  DZone has put a [administrative  block on this article](http://feeds.dzone.com/~r/dzone/frontpage/~3/324041387/php_sucks_3.html). I have no idea why, but i think it must be because of the tags that i had put their. Anyways, it's fun. **PS**: if you also think PHP does not suck, you may want to join [gathering of PHP enthusiast](http://phpcamp.org), on 20th September 2008.