Is it just me or are more and more people switching over to Ruby on Rails and Django?

I would say no...

I second that.

No PHP is not dying, have you noticed how many websites are coded with PHP?

I've never even heard of Django. Ruby on Rails is growing in popularity, but nowhere near being able to compete with PHP in terms of usage. I just did a quick search and found http://www.devtopics.com/most-popula...ing-languages/ which gives a few rankings and then to http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/conte...pci/index.html which is referenced from the first link.

Python, I noticed from the above links, is growing. I'm interested in seeing if PHP-to-desktop converters will help bring PHP up vs Python. I rather doubt it though as from what I hear Python is more powerful.

I did just check out the RoR stuff and liked it's structure. Just not ready to learn a new language right now and when I went to the ruby site, they had a butt load of security patches that raised my concerns, so I held off on Ruby for now until it's more stable, secure, available, and I have the time to learn it.

I really doubt it could be dying. I don't even know PHP well at all yet every one of my sites are all .php extensions simply so I can use includes. It is straightforward to use which is why I think it is so popular.

I highly doubt that php is dying.. its just that it has more to compete with now.

Originally Posted by johniman7

It is straightforward to use which is why I think it is so popular.

I think that's also it's largest fault. Programming languages should require that a coder know a bit about programming concepts. PHP is way too forgiving in that regard. Many people appreciate the added advantages that more...what's the right word...structured? OOP-native? Robust? -- nah, not the last one... languages provide and move into them. That is where, in my never-humble opinion, Ruby and Python are attracting more programmers. They're eager for that structure. Now, Ruby has the crutch of being able to use Rails which is far too easy. Generating so much for people just begs the un-trained individual to go in there and mess with things. But, that's an analysis after only about 2-3 hours of Ruby research, so take it with a fair grain of salt.

PHP is way too forgiving in that regard

I couldn't agree more. I've seen terrible practices with PHP - inline sql, etc.

It is however a great language to use if you know how to apply the principles of Java to your code. I wish PHP were so much more strict...

I don't think PHP is dieing. But, I do think that XHTML / CSS are becoming more and more popular.

Originally Posted by justen

No PHP is not dying, have you noticed how many websites are coded with PHP?

Yeah a lot of sites are in PHP, but I notice more people are learning Ruby on Rails or Django when picking up a new framework. You guys agree?

A few of the friends that got me into anything computer related started out with PERL (are PERL-junkies), and play with PHP occaisionally.

From what i've seen so far, i've hated PERL from the moment I touched it and my interest has been devouted to PHP at this time.

Should some other, more efficient, security-saavy code appear on the net in another few years- i'll definitely pay attention to it.

I just don't think that will happen anytime soon, IMHO

Sorry dude, but php is too good. From my point of view, php is developing and more and more people is using it.

I heard that there is a group within Google developing a RoR-similar architecture for Python, which might be interesting if they ever open-source it. I don't know much about Python, however, other than it is a very high-level language, is object-oriented, and doesn't use C-family syntax. I believe it does allow things like method-overloading, that PHP will never support.

PHP is hardly dying...

You can still mimic method overloading in PHP, although a slight nuisance nevertheless.

Oh, and never say never.

Not in the near future ..

I like php , easy to use , easy to edit , faster loading and ofcourse its open source ..

I think php is not dying
But some people don't like the .php extension, so they rewrite it to .html or to a name without extension: "home.php" --> "home.html" or "home"
But almost all websites use php, and you can see that php is more used that asp ( I saw only microsoft.com use asp and some few ones).
And also almost all forums use php just like this one.

no it is not dying actually increases its popularity i think

Originally Posted by speedy23

no it is not dying actually increases its popularity i think

I would say the same, PHP is as important as having an Internet connection.

Not only is php not dying, but it is growing.. With CakePHP (Very similar to Ruby on Rails) it is indeed going to grow bigger than what it is.

Shimmy