Edit: It's actually remarkable how close my tech stack lines up. CodeIgniter (php), node.js, JRuby, AngularJS, socket.io, d3 & highcharts, memcached (reddis soon, I think). It's a good time to be a polyglot in the enterprise space.
That's a really bad assumption. It's actually very difficult to find jobs with established companies because they maintain such a low profile. I wish they would be better at promoting themselves.
Perhaps those weren't the type of companies you thought I meant, but I work for a company in that category. If you like c#, c++, or Java and love rain 8 months out of the year, we might have a place for you in Oregon...
It's only the inexperienced unprofessional wannabees that bitch about anything that doesn't use all the cool new toys top to bottom, and try to solve every problem using the coolest tool instead of the most appropriate.
And the only thing "wrong" with PHP is that it's inelegant and inconsistent as language. 90% of the people bitching about PHP couldn't put two solid arguments together.
The argument that it attracts the worst programmers is no longer true since Ruby's "coolness" started attracting large numbers of less than mediocre programmers, proving publicly on Github that you can write crappy code in even the most elegant of languages.
Further, "the only thing "wrong" with PHP is that it's inelegant and inconsistent as language" is your opinion. It is most certainly inconsistent, yes. It also grows and changes in strange, illogical ways, has a history of horrendous built-in defaults and security practices (e.g. REGISTER_GLOBALS, which had a very long life and is likely still enabled on a whole heck of a lot of servers). There are many reasons to avoid PHP.
There are also reasons to avoid most other languages. I and many other people, however, believe that PHP is so far ahead on that list as to be a liability in and of itself.
You're making even more unsupported assumptions regarding what attracts people to Ruby, and I don't know whether this is false dichotomy or some other logical fallacy, but "you can write bad code in Y as well as X" says absolutely nothing about X.
In the end: Yes, if you're careful and skilled, you can probably write solid, secure code in PHP. However, there are more roadblocks to this pursuit in PHP than in any other language I've worked with (9 years of experience in PHP, 6 in Python, less in various other relevant languages).
I had written one vaguely similar to yours but ended up not posting it because i was seething with anger.
I just don't understand how so much vitriol continues to bubble up on HN posts like these.
How does Ember.js compare to AngularJS and Backbone.js?
The original code base was in PHP. Very, very terrible proceduralish PHP. Since we have to continue to maintain the current system while we rewrite we can implement once and port that code (if necessary) to the new system with minimal effort.
Could I switch us to Rails? Yes, but I don't see the point. We're a PHP shop and in my professional opinion (having used both extensively) Symfony 2 is virtually on-par with something like Rails and switching at this stage of the game would be project suicide.
* If you're using Rails, and like it - stick with it.
* If you're using a good PHP framework like Symfony 2 or Zend Framework, and like it - stick with it.
You'll be just as productive and successful either way.
I avoid using associative arrays as return objects when arrays of real objects (or type-safe collections of objects) are better suited.
So I think that you can write really nice code with PHP and a good framework. It's more about the software architecture than the language.
At risk of dragging the OP into a framework/language war...if you're building an internal app from scratch...why use Symfony? Is it because the rest of the Apple internal apps are in PHP/Symfony and it doesn't make sense to have the internal app group write in different frameworks?
(I'm assuming different languages isn't a huge deal, since the OP mentions using Ruby to handle deployment)
I'm curious about the choices that lead to doing the API in PHP/Symfony as opposed to Node, though. I've written APIs in both PHP and Node and it seems to me that Node has the advantage in terms of being more lightweight for the task. So I'd love to hear what Jarrod sees as the advantages PHP presents that make it a better fit.
EDIT:
Got the following response to the question on Twitter, for anyone else curious:
> I have but honestly I'm just not comfortable enough yet w/ Node to a jump. :) We're capable and productive w/ PHP. Maybe in time.
So, totally solid reason. :)
If you want to get in to Ember, we've been using it in production since 0.6. We'll be actively hiring people pretty soon.
Deets are: We're in Manhattan, NYC. We're a team of 3. Use Ember.js, Rails, D3.js and a bunch of crazy backend things including custom stuff. Have lots of paying customers. Lots of money in the bank and we're on our way to be cash flow positive this year.
My contact info is in my profile. We hire opportunistically so while we're not actively looking to fill a position, if you'd be an amazing person to join us, I'd hire you.
Of course people want to work fulltime on the latest hotness in javascript. I'm surprised that you're surprised.
