Why Processwire Isn't Coded In Nodejs?

[marek747]

I am learning web development, and from research (like browsing and asking questions on quora) of languages that i could learn, it seems that JS is a best choice. It can be used for front end and back end too with nodeJS. second best choice for me would be python or ruby on rails.

It seems that there is no reason to go with old school PHP. Yet CMSs like PW or WP are all coded in PHP.

Why is that? why newer technologies are not used? NodeJS is very fast , wouldn't it work great if something like PW would be coded in nodeJS?

[kongondo]

....It seems that there is no reason to go with old school PHP.....

Uh? Old school is not always bad school

[Nico Knoll]

Because it's not that easy for the average user to setup a nodeJS environment, I guess.

[Martijn Geerts]

Why did Ruby needed the Rails framework to become very popular?

Why do Google developers love PHP.

Does NodeJS stays popular in the future, say 4 or 5 years?

Why is facebook coded in PHP? 

What's wrong with PHP?

[Soma]

PHP also works in the browser.

[marek747]

I don't know if PHP is wrong or something ... note that i am not a web developer or programmer ... i am just trying to learn some basics in codecadamy right now and then decide which direction to go ... nodeJS is cool right now and has got some benefits like it outperforms PHP in speed ... at the same time I like PW, so i wonder what to focus on in the future.

[kongondo]

I'd suggest you learn PHP first [when it comes to server-side tech]...since it is the most popular server-side programming language (>80% of market). On client-side, learn HTML, CSS and some js, or better jQuery ;-)...you can then pick up node.js along the way....but I am biased. Seriously though, it will do you good to learn PHP. It is not going to disappear in the near future (if it does at all)...

[Martijn Geerts]

If I would start I would start with pure Javascript or with PHP. Then if the basics are there, you could expand. 

When first riding a bike training wheels are necessary, put them off when you're ready. 

[diogo]

Focus on both.

But you will find it much easier to start with pw

[pwired]

Old school PHP, say what ? Then why is PHP powering so much of the internet?

http://www.phphosts.org/blog/overview-of-the-php-programming-language/

quote:

Modern versions of PHP are object oriented just as modern versions of C/C++ are.

In fact, PHPs relationship with the C programming language is so close now that it is possible

for developers to write extensions in C to add additional functionality to the PHP language.

Edit:

How many node.js programmers are wanted compared to php programmers

[Pete]

That's not to say PHP isn't messy or inconsistent at times (probably why I get on so well with it ), but it is good.

[Ivan Gretsky]

PHP is default on most shared hosting servers nowadays. It is much easier and cheeper to get a site running than with NodeJS, for example. So it seems like a better choice for SMB and therefore developers that just start their career as freelancers.

[MatthewSchenker]

Greetings,

Ah, the code war sees a battle here on the PW home front! This has been raging on for a long time.

You don't have to choose all or nothing with languages. My own history is with C/C++, and over the past year I have been spending time learning Python. After a while, you start seeing the same underlying principles in each one.

PHP is perhaps more "messy" than other languages. You don't have the same level of agreement in PHP as you see in the Python, Ruby, Java, or .NET worlds. All of those other languages have rallied around a set of conventions, frameworks, and more. Fewer conventions and many more frameworks makes PHP more confusing at first. But that's also what makes PHP so lively and flexible.

Thanks,

Matthew

[teppo]

Marek747,

All languages have their ups and downs. "Language X is better than language Y" is just about as far from valid argument as you can get.

For an example, if speed is your first goal and popularity second, it would make most sense to forget node.js, RoR, and any given framework for that matter (they always add some extra overhead) and go with plain C instead (although that's just about as "old-school" as you can get). C is widely acknowledged as one of the most popular programming languages (TIOBE, IEEE Spectrum, etc.) and it's definitely the go-to language if you want superior speed.

That being said, web applications built on top of C are (to my best knowledge) very rare, and some developers would argue that it's not exactly an easy language to master. Just for comparison, something like Ruby (and Ruby on Rails, which is a framework you mentioned) is designed from a very different point of view: it was originally known to be very "hip", very comfortable to work with.. and extremely slow.

(I'm assuming they've improved those figures since then – that was quite a while ago – but Ruby is still hardly your best choice if you need top notch performance.)

If you want a language that's comfortable to work with, good for web application development (I'm assuming that's why you're here), and widely supported, go with PHP or Python. PHP is more widely used, which makes it a good choice. It's also ugly, inconsistent, etc. but a lot of developers have learned to live with those flaws because it's good at what really matters: getting shit done.

Note: I'm not saying that JavaScript and/or node.js is a bad choice, but they're not quite as popular or well-established yet, and the future of the web is bloody hard to predict. It's definitely good to have knowledge of them, but in my opinion they're not quite there yet. Perhaps one day they'll power all the popular apps around, or perhaps they're a fading trend, nobody really knows.

[SiNNuT]

In answer to the original question:

Imo in the open source world a lot of the Content Management Systems are build with PHP, because, despite its shortcomings, it is:

A) a pretty good fit, with a low entry level,

B) has a long history in the web world,

C) due to various reasons PHP has an insane presence in the shared hosting world compared to any other language.

In the world of the more 'enterprisy' and/or closed source CMS'es i have i feeling there are more Java or C#/VB ASP.NET systems out there.

When it comes to a general purpose CMS/CMF, Node.js is not the first thing that comes to mind. Commonly mentioned use-cases for Node are real-time applications, like a chat app, or building heavily used API's on top of maybe a nosql document store. That is not to say there aren't any Node CMS'es around.