PHP, Perl and Python on the wane?
I'm not going to dispute the results of the survey because it looks like EDS does that for a living, so they most likely know what they're doing. 
However, my personal opinion is that the industry drives the developers not the other way around. Perhaps the drop in PHP, Perl and Python users is because the job market requiring those skills has not taken off yet. Maybe developers are going toward Java or (gasp) ASP because those have been traditionally more "popular" in the industry, making it easier to find a job. I agree with the article in that I think as more and more companies are beginning to use PHP then developers will "come back" to it. I don't think their popularity is on the wane at all.
Of course, I'm a bit biased.
Lately...I've been noticing alot of articles that are sort of fishy. I know, I know, I know I shouldn't say this, but I'm going to. MS has major money and pull...and I think they are trying to spin anything non-MS controlled (like open source in general). I believe, it's part of a master plan up until the day they finally launch their thing...like an elongated pre-emptive attack. Of course they mention ASP...
I bet next week an article will pop up claiming that both OSX and Linux cause cancer.
Plus, just last week a read an article that claimed that PHP (in particular) was finally being adopted within corporations and that it was poised to seriously take-off. I can't find it now.
The point about Zend profits not dropping 20% I think are telling... I don't really believe this particular article.
i think, that if IBM and other REALLY invest in something, it wont disappear as easily as
any other oss-project.
( 'cause these firms are to adopt longterm biz-strategies and cannot invest in every hype
apearing on the www)
hm.. every self-respecting web-provider is now offering PhP scripting. Maybe the GROWTH dropped?
I like how you write PhP, gives it an air of respectability!
MHO: (ok maybe I'm not so humble), but most companies use Microsoft OS and products on their networks, and when they get around to moving up to business on the web (I'm not just talking a promo site) and an intranet, or whatever, the first thing they do is look towards microsoft products as they believe "they are the only ones out there". Typical corporate bloak doesn't even know what open source means, nor probably care. So they turn to FrontPage and ASP and etc.. And the first thing they realize after venturing a way into FrontPage stuff is that they need someone who knows the back-end side of things, connectivity to databases etc, and what do they do: They advertise for someone who knows ASP and this creates, to a certain degree, some market movement, but mostly it creates an illusion of popularity.
On the other hand there may indeed be more developers using the thread's mentioned languages and many (of those developers) may suggest to prospective employers a switch to their language of choice. Therefore, MHO is that PHP (and sisters) will win from the grass-roots up, because ultimately nobody can do nothing without a geek!
400 "developers" surveyed by a small-time marketing company on the west coast of the US.
Yeah, that's definitely gospel.
I think not...
A site I occasionally visit switched from PHP to ASP over the past 18 months. They had more than enough issues with the PHP version of the site. I asked why the switch but did not receive a reply (rude). It could have been down to crappy coding, personal preference and all that but meh. Why advertise the change of coding language if you didn't see a major flaw in the language shrugs
The article says a drop in PHP, Perl and Python, maybe it's discrimination against the letter P? I'd like to know if developers are dropping these languages what else are they using. I have noticed, with my noob eyes & ears that a growing population and talk is circulcing around Java. Maybe its time that old dog had its day?
What's this ruby on rails thing I have ONLY read about here? taps foot & tips glasses forward Hmmm
I like PHP. I don't want it to die just as I am really starting to get into it. pouts Plus all the other languages look hard. trembles
Note the type of projects on this site (yes, I know it's just one example but nevertheless):
(This might be a useful site for some of the freelancers out there too.)
I agree with vaska: article smells of fish. Another article (speaking of partnership with Oracle -- nothing to sneeze at) says 40% of web applications are PHP. On the wane???
Regarding prior comment (e) I would say that developers do drive the industry. They provide the programmatic-solutions and generally the buyer's are looking for business solutions and don't really know (or care) how they are acheived. I think the open source movement will have a great impact. Though, if love of money IS the root of evil, then maybe Zend will become like Microsoft (kinda how Adobe is going...) 
Money is power. I say we replace money with gummi bears.
davidjam wrote:Regarding prior comment (e) I would say that developers do drive the industry. They provide the programmatic-solutions and generally the buyer's are looking for business solutions and don't really know (or care) how they are acheived.
I agree with your point that they don't care how results are achieved; I guess I was speaking more from an in-house/job market perspective. Look how long it has taken (10 years!) for PHP to finally break through to the enterprise level. If developers were truly driving the industry, wouldn't that have happened long ago? It's the nimrods in management that have to be "convinced" to shy away from MS and embrace open source... and that persuasion is done by a limited number of top level software people, not the development community as a whole. Once that has been achieved, smaller to mid-size companies will begin to say "hey, if it's good enough for IBM and Yahoo! then it's good enough for us". Then the job market for PHP will expand.
I hate to keep using the car analogy, but somehow it keeps coming up. Right now there isn't a large demand for automobile mechanics that have hybrid experience (electric/gas powered car). But imagine that Hertz or Enterprise car rental companies decided to switch to exclusively using hybrids. Other companies would follow suit, and the demand for experienced hybrid auto mechanics would skyrocket.
PHP and Python have each experienced a 25 per cent drop in the last 12 months while Perl fell 20 per cent.
What kind of drop?
Drop in developers learning?
Drop in developers using?
Drop in number applying for these jobs?
Any other question that comes to mind that is relevant
The article at its best is very vague, there is no definition of what it means by drop, where exactly the survey was conducted
EDC polled 400 developers in small, medium and large enterprises.
Right, and thatd be in what country?
I agree to one of them Perl is on the wane for Web Development but is on the rise from what I have seen in terms of jobs for Administrative Tasks etc, Python is still a Buzz word in many companies in my local area and is used quite a lot, PHP is still the newbies choice for learning a web programming language.
Elizabeth wrote:Look how long it has taken (10 years!) for PHP to finally break through to the enterprise level. If developers were truly driving the industry, wouldn't that have happened long ago? It's the nimrods in management that have to be "convinced" to shy away from MS and embrace open source... and that persuasion is done by a limited number of top level software people, not the development community as a whole
I cannot agree more.
vaaaska wrote:MS has major money and pull...and I think they are trying to spin anything non-MS controlled (like open source in general). I believe, it's part of a master plan up until the day they finally launch their thing...like an elongated pre-emptive attack
Im not sure this is a MS type article, however I do know MS do pay article writers to talk their product up a lot.
Elizabeth wrote:It's the nimrods in management that have to be "convinced" to shy away from MS and embrace open source... and that persuasion is done by a limited number of top level software people, not the development community as a whole. Once that has been achieved, smaller to mid-size companies will begin to say "hey, if it's good enough for IBM and Yahoo! then it's good enough for us". Then the job market for PHP will expand.
I'm also responding to Planetsim as well...
Isn't it logical then, with the rise of Linux and the impending decline of Windows (it's just not going to be good...they will have to give it away to compete at the current levels), then PHP will be far on the rise.
However, isn't PHP simply the new HTML? I actually find myself writing less html these days and using scripts that I've been using for some time now to produce compliant html stuff.
Hmmm...there's an approach to a tutorial I might consider (yes, it's been done before but I've been told that I shouldn't worry about that).
However, isn't PHP simply the new HTML? I actually find myself writing less html these days and using scripts that I've been using for some time now to produce compliant html stuff.
Who's going to beat him first?
PHP IS NOT HTML, PHP CAN NOT REPLACE HTML. PHP: Hypertext PREprocessor, basically means PHP handles the data before it becomes HTML. Markup is not scripting, Scripting needs markup. They are married.
XHTML will replace HTML but not for a long time. We are stuck with HTML 
slaps vaaaska with a tuna fish & stops quoting his PHP for noobs book
Separation of content from logic is one thing...but as you say the two are 'married' which is why I mention it. I never said anything about replacement...I'd call it a type of streamlining. And yes, I'm talking about newbs...I would expect that the more advanced folks would use much more sophisticated methods (html classes, Smarty, etc).
But, It's a tutorial that is going to be written - probably by the end of today.
And I'm off topic here...and shouldn't even be thinking about PHP as a four month project is starting.
Not sure if PHP is on the wane, however if I am finding it is much harder to find a competent contract person for PHP then it is for .NET here in the west coast.