I'm in my 30s and grew up with PHP since the 2000s.
There's still an insane amount of money to be made with WordPress plugins, WordPress support, and more. That industry isn't dead, it's thriving, it's insanely cheap to jump into and not get yourself into debt, and there's tons of people that need help.
While people here argue about the 10th "correct" way to do server-side rendering (hey, React says we gotta use RSC now!) or figure out how to get their Rust code to compile to WASM for their Codepen demo website to increase a number from 1 to 2, thousands of us churn away daily making money from this "dinosaur" PHP in the real world.
The bias on HN makes you think PHP is completely dead and it's funny to see the comments here.
Not just that. I recently checked out Laracon, the Laravel conference. You can find videos on YouTube. But I am yet to find another programming conference that was this high energy, fun and focused on great developer experience.
And because so many people make real money off of it, there is a focus on making practical things. Hackers who are looking at doing their own startup, might want to try out Laravel and it's ecosystem.
I'd be more than happy to jump back to PHP and do some WordPress dev for as little as $15/hr. I feel like the problem is finding the first project to get some experience and sell the next project.
There's still an insane amount of money to be made with WordPress plugins, WordPress support, and more. That industry isn't dead, it's thriving, it's insanely cheap to jump into and not get yourself into debt, and there's tons of people that need help.
While people here argue about the 10th "correct" way to do server-side rendering (hey, React says we gotta use RSC now!) or figure out how to get their Rust code to compile to WASM for their Codepen demo website to increase a number from 1 to 2, thousands of us churn away daily making money from this "dinosaur" PHP in the real world.
The bias on HN makes you think PHP is completely dead and it's funny to see the comments here.