JetBrains Survey Declares PHP Declining, Then Says It Isn't

JetBrains released its annual State of the Developer Ecosystem survey in late October, drawing more than twenty-four thousand responses from programmers worldwide. The survey declared that PHP and Ruby are in "long term decline" based on usage trends tracked over five years. Shortly after publication, JetBrains posted a separate statement asserting that "PHP remains a stable, professional, and evolving ecosystem." The company offered no explanation for the apparent contradiction, The Register reports.

The survey's methodology involves weighting responses to account for bias toward JetBrains users and regional distribution factors. The company acknowledges some bias likely remains since its own customers are more inclined to respond. The survey also found that 85% of developers now use AI coding tools.

PHP not dying yet?

[Quakeulf]

Last time I did PHP was in 2007. JS is so powerful now that it's all I need for webdev.

Re:

[sg_oneill]

Last time I did PHP was in 2007. JS is so powerful now that it's all I need for webdev.

The gnarl toothed beast is still lurking around, but its mostly just used for hosting wordpress and throwing together templates and plugins for it. Theres still a bit of use of Laravel, but its paradoxically very much in the "burger flipper" category of least sought after and lowest paid jobs out there. Congrats for those graduating college with a coding qualification, you get to work on nonsense!

Honestly, I wish JS would go the same way. I hate working with the language, and web dev in general.

Re:

[ls671]

Yeah, that's exactly what I came here to post, well, basically. More precisely, I was going to post that the only way I could see php was going down in popularity is that the same developers segment with propensity to use php would use node, js and the likes.

Not for me anyway, I prefer using a "real" programming languages for anything above really small quick and dirty applications instead of interpreted scripting languages and I find it pays off in the long term. For quick and dirty, I simply use bash scri

Re:

[OolimPhon]

You write web pages in bash scripts?

Re:

[ls671]

Sure, simple web pages work fine in bash scripts. Use http basic auth for simple status pages and you are good to go!

Re:

[Tablizer]

Gag, shoot 'em both!

Re:

[evil_aaronm]

And replace them with ... ? I'm partially serious: I don't pay as much attention to the web scene, anymore, so I don't know what's cool and hip.

Re:

[Synonymous Homonym]

And replace them with ... ?

Shell script. (awk is fine, too.)

Or compiled machine code if you need performance; but if you need performance, you aren't going to use PHP or JS anyway.

You want to know what's cool and hip?
JS is the new Perl: Nobody knows what it is good for, but the kids are using it for everything.
(Although they are calling it TypeScript these days, it's still JS, with all the cruft and remote code injection that comes with it.)

Re:And replace them with what?

[Tablizer]

For one, get away from C-based syntax, at least the ugly parts. Second, don't overload "+" for both concatenation and math (Js); that was bigly stupid. Third, give us optional named parameters. Anonymous objects are not a good substitute. Fourth, clean up name-space management instead of using a hacked-on "fix".

Example function declaration:

func myFunc(aa, bb:int, cc:num.required, dd:required, ee:int=7) {...}

This example is "semi-typed" as "aa" doesn't require a type (is not validated). "dd" doesn't require

Re:

[Tablizer]

Addendum

I'd prefer "req" over "required" as it would be used often: frequent tokens/idioms should be short. And "str" instead of "string".

One could put ranges and other decorations, perhaps custom ones:

var x:num.range(0, 99.99);
var s:str.maxLen(12);
var s:maxLen(120); // shorter version of above, strings don't need explicit types.
var u; // untyped, but treated as string by default
var foo=7; // automatically "int" based on constant.
var fi=7.0; // automatically num (decimal*)

(Variable declarations and paramete

Wordpress

[theendlessnow]

Sadly, the #1 "CMS-like" thingy, Wordpress is PHP. It's the majority and actually behind a significant double digit percentage of all web sites.

I think WP is poop... but, here we are.

That seems correct to me

[Going_Digital]

We have loads of PHP applications in use where I am that will need to remain in service for the forceable future, we have the developers on the team and that is what they know best. We would like to build new projects in something more modern like Go, but changing is hard. Some new small projects are done in Go, and we see PHP as something that we will gradually move away from, but these things don't happen overnight.

Re:

[fahrbot-bot]

We have loads of PHP applications in use where I am that will need to remain in service for the forceable future, ...

Hopefully, you meant "foreseeable". :-)

Come on now

[jrnvk]

Whatever camp you're currently in is the camp you will be in for a while. Nothing new has come along recently, and AI will only keep the status quo. It's Java, PHP, .NET, or something else from here on out.

Re:

[wyHunter]

Now this makes me wonder if computer science changes and research are a thing of the past with AI - just like care path based medicine done by "AI" (called that in the 90s when McKesson started doing such things) has led to a decline in patient care quality in medicine.

Big PHP got to them

[swillden]

n/t

Re:

[Quakeulf]

You're thinking of PCP.

Re:

[wyHunter]

At least it isn't Big Perl.

Re:

[swillden]

At least it isn't Big Perl.

No kidding. Those guys are scary.

Re:

[evil_aaronm]

Larry would like to talk to you in the back alley, if you have a moment.

Re:

[swillden]

Uh.. I'll have to catch him later. I have a... thing... yeah, a thing.

Re: PHP remains stable, professional, and evolving

[devslash0]

100%

If you do not like reality, simply lie!

[gweihir]

This seems just another instance of that.

41% are Gen Z?!?!?

[Un-Thesis]

So one of the slides says that 41% of the respondents are Gen Z.

None of Gen Z are using PHP, but they only make up about 30% of the workforce.

I use JetBrains PhpStorm, Rust Rover, and Rider (C#) every day, and I didn't even know about this survey. I'm a Milennial.

Manufactured drama?

[laughing_badger]

Long term decline: user numbers are going down over the long term.

Stable, professional, evolving ecosystem: PHP is solid to build on, well managed, and evolutions are happening.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see a conflict between the two statements?

Professional?

[pooh666]

Work on Magento for five minutes. PHP trying to be JAVA and just making a mess of it. I have always DEEPLY hated PHP. Its origins were far from professional, SSIs and hacks to make web page counters. I am more than happy to see it going away. I know all of the complaints about Javascript/Node, but frankly it is far better. Types are incredibly overrated, but I wish TS wasn't just window dressing as well. Like a mode instead of a bullshit build layer. Everything is flawed, except geek languages that have

Re:Professional?

[flippy]

PHP isn't the reason Magento sucks. Magento would still be a bloated pig no matter what language underlayed it. It was one of the first things I moved the company I work for away from when I was hired.