--- Daniel Pupius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What do you say to someone who says:
> 
> "PHP is just a kiddie language"?
> 
> (Source: http://www.dhtmlcentral.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19373)

I would suggest not even bothering with these types of people. Like
everyone else, they all have opinions (not necessarily based on anything).
If you're the type of person who enjoys enlightening people, it might be
worth your while, but it's much easier to convince an intelligent person
who has valid complaints than it is to convince a stupid person with none
(in my experience).

You can usually tell by the way they pose their argument whether they're
worth listening to or not. Take this for example:

"Why are you in a situation where you can't use a real server-side
solution, i.e. JSP or ASP.NET?" - Tim Scarfe

The reason that this type of statement can attract passionate responses is
that there is no logic in it and no statement that can be disputed. What
are the criteria of a "real" solution? Why makes JSP a "real" solution?
There aren't answers to questions like these, and this is probably because
Mr. Scarfe has no valid argument underneath his trollish remark. So, my
advice would be to ignore it.

> PHP is currently my strongest development language and it annoys me
> that it is a much less bankable skillset than .NET and Java. How
> long do you think it's going to take to get respect? Will it ever
> happen?

It's already beginning to happen. I must admit to having an "inside"
perspective much of the time, but this changed recently. A few months ago,
I spoke on a PHP Panel at an NYSIA meeting. This is a group of people who
are CEOs and entrepeneurs of software companies. What I learned is that,
to these types of people, PHP is considered to be bleeding-edge
technology. It's just now on their radar - something that they see as the
future of Web development, but not something they're using now. To most of
us, PHP is old news is the sense that it's been around for a decade. Our
perspectives are completely different. It was enlightening.

As far as job postings go, realize that the people who create the postings
(and even do the interviewing in some cases) do not know anything about
the position. They realize that they need a Web developer, so they throw
around some words they've heard in association with Web development. This
approach likely won't change, but I think that PHP will begin to become
one of these words.

The real savvy companies (Yahoo, Amazon, Ticketmaster, etc.) already
choose things like PHP and mod_perl over J* (choose your favorite Java
acronym) and ASP. I think everyone else will catch up, but it will
probably take time. I predict that the next ten years will be very
fruitful for PHP.

Chris

=====
Chris Shiflett - http://shiflett.org/

PHP Security Handbook
     Coming mid-2004
HTTP Developer's Handbook
     http://httphandbook.org/

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