PHP still is good but it is not vital anymore. I think Phyton is better and more popular than PHP.

Important for what? You need to know R, Python, Java, PHP... are only language, the infrastructure behind them is really important. For scientist, Python and Matlab are popular, because there are many valuable lib were developed on them. PHP is still good for web, because of its performance.

PHP still is good but it is not vital anymore. I think Phyton is better and more popular than PHP.

Well, I think after few more years there will be demand of only Artificial intelligence, computer human interaction, robotics etc. Industry is changing. Every industry want to reduce human effort. It doesn't mean to reduce work load, it mean to reduce employment. So, better to learn robotics computing now a days, as after 3 more year, you will see list of unemployment rises more as demand of traditional programming will decrease. Industry will need employee, who can handle and maintain the automation system. Two types of Industry will rise, one who develops automation system and one who will use the automation system. So, I won't suggest anything to learn, but will only suggest to do thinking about future needs. As no industry loves employee, they loves only your work. The day, you show your weakness, from that time onward they will plan to show you exit doors.

All programming languages are equally important depending on the task. Although i must admit that php seems to be losing its grip because there are currently many languages that are now able to do what php could only do and more. The trend of IT is shifting to data science, which includes machine learning, data mining, visualization, computer vision and others, i guess that is why R and Python are getting popular. Python its self can do a lot from machine learning, web based application and so many others. Whereas php is somewhat limited to a few tasks.

As with all things, the answer depends on the context - there are six design patterns that describe website interactions - each having their own set of optimal programming or scripting languages:

Presentation Centric

Data Centric - Copy

Data Centric - Reference

Collaboration

Application - Rapid

Application - Robust

A balanced approach should include a mix of both programming languages and scripting languages to address the requirements of the six design patterns. For high-end scalability and availability, application server based architectures become important.

In large enterprise web development where scalability and availability are a requirement, Enterprise Java and C# will tend to be favored. Where static content is favored, scripting languages tend to be favored. Where dynamic content is favored, more robust programming languages are favored. Database knowledge is also important as the scale of the business increases.

Stackoverflow’s annual survey (2017) provides the following breakdown:

JavaScript – 66.7%

SQL – 53.7%

Java – 38.3%

C# – 36.7%

Python – 27.6%

PHP – 27.2%

C++ – 19.3%

C – 15.4%

TypeScript – 11.3%

GitHub (2017) lists the top three web languages as:

JavaScript

Python

Java

Other factors to consider from an organizational perspective:

What is currently being used? Organizations tend to favor technology that they already have comeptence with.

What are the business requirements? In a reuse before buy before build strategy the question of programming language may already be decided for the organization.

PHP is an evolving web programming language and most active websites still using PHP in some sort of way. Hence, no doubt that php is still an important language. Since current hot topics are related to cloud and machine learning, people tend to discuss more about cloud computing than web programming languages like php.. I supposed Python is now the fastest-growing major programming language and has greater popularity than others.

This importance quotient is completely relative to one's perspective of Languages and Implementation I think. If you feel comfortable implementing a business problem (which requires web as its interface) with PHP (keeping all of its requirements in mind) you should do that in PHP anyway.

Obviously there are exceptions. For hardware level access of data, C was everyone's goto. Now with time Python has taken that place as it beats C in terms of performance.

I think this helps.

Hi,

Every programming Language has it's own importance. Oldtimer language C appears to be the fastest grower of 2017 in the TIOBE index and thus is declared programming language of the year. So, my point of view is php has it's own demands. If you see the last 10 years survey TIOBE index PHP language included in top 10 languages of the modern age. Please visit this link and see...https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

Dang Ngoc Hoang Thanh -- That is actually wrong. Different languages have different language concepts and different applications.

PHP is not really fast.

In general: As long as you are not developing web applications you do not need PHP. And if you are developing web applications you do not need it either in the most cases. Use server-side JS or Java/Python.

You should check with the organization you want to work with wether they want you to know PHP.

having core knowledge of any language gives you an edge while using any framework. so PHP is still worthy to learn

Bumping this post a little... but I would argue that PHP is very valuable since PHP7. Even Rasmus Lerdorf himself said that since PHP7 they finally "made it work". Performance wise, that is. Other than that, it is just a programming language - and therefore just a tool. You wouldn't use a hammer to paint your wall. Even though I am a huge fan of C, if I need to make something quickly and hassle free, I will do it in PHP. If I need outright performance, I will do it in C.

That being said, PHP is perhaps not very popular in academia, but still the most used language on web servers. I think it is a mistake not to teach it in higher education. Businesses around the world are constantly trying to get their hands on qualified PHP programmers because there is an enormous shortage. I get messages from headhunters on LinkedIn about 3 times a week, just because I am a Zend certified engineer.

It depends on what you consider to be important, whether you should learn PHP. I believe it is still very much underrated, perhaps historically because it is considered a "scripting language" instead of a "programming language"... but personally I feel that for all practical purposes, that distinction is completely irrelevant. If it gets the job done (properly), then it's a good fit.

Still we are working on PHP. None of the languages are outdated. In 1990's Python was introduced. But now only it is very familiar because of easy interface. Python's syntax is very clear, so it is easy to understand program code. Python is often referred to as "executable pseudo-code" because its syntax mostly follows the conventions used by programmers to outline their ideas without the formal verbosity of code in most programming languages; in other words syntax of Python is almost identical to the simplified "pseudo-code" used by many programmers to prototype and describe their solution to other programmers.

Also PHP having many advantages when compare to python. So we can't omit one programming language. May be after several year people may go for PHP. Who Knows????

I think if you want to write a machine learning program you should go to Python, which is a great programming language

But in my opinion, PHP will still maintain its popularity and power, though it should take a little time to devote to web development.

A small addition. The modern and very popular PHP frameworks, especially Laravel (https://laravel.com), make PHP an interesting and important programming language. As already mentioned several times, each language has its advantages and disadvantages and ideal fields of application. When it comes to complex web applications, PHP 7+ is a good choice. In an academic context, for example, it can be used for database management or for creating an API. R (e.g. Shiny) and Python (e.g. Dash) apps can be integrated very easily.