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Ask HN: Ruby Dev, is moving to PHP a step backward career wise?

21 points by sfrailsdev ↗ HN
My previous projects at the company have all been in Ruby on Rails, but they really want me to move to a PHP framework, as I am probably the last remaining Rails developer. It's not that I can't pick it up, I picked up Ruby and Rails when I joined, after Django and Python, but I worry that in the future, if I am looking to move, people are going to look at my resume, see I'm not using Rails or Node or Golang, and pass. Most of the company is back east and kinda enterprisy, I'm one of a handful of devs in the bay area office.

Thoughts?

26 comments

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usernamebias
I think a resume with Ruby, Python and soon PHP it will see very little resistance on the job market. Like the universe, programming languages burn really hot for a while then, depending how hot it burned, they cool off very slowly. Sometimes even reigniting. God I love metaphors. My thoughts are, don't see it as a step down or back, see it as a widen field of vision. Cultured, season devs are hotter than any language will ever be. Also, never settle.
siscia
My thought is that you should aim to do something different from what you are doing now.

Just change language is not a step forward nor backward.

Keep doing the same type of application over and over with always the same set of constrains and problem is not a step forward.

I wouldn't worry about change language... I would be worry about don't change the set of problems you are facing and the kind of tool you are learning.

(with tool I don't mean "git" or "make" but I mean mental tool, paradigms, ideas.)

ivraatiems
Another way to put this: In the future, after this job, do you want to work with someone who'd see the word "PHP" on a resume and discard you as a result?
atsaloli
What are your career goals? (Where are you trying to get to?)
cdnsteve
What are the other devs backgrounds on the team? We just switched from PHP to Python and the whole team loves it.
justanotherbody
I think the kind of php you'll be working on us critical here. Will this be modern php, or are you being asked to switch to an old framework entrenched in the company?

If there's a genuine opportunity for growth and learning with modern skills i think you will always be able to spin that positively

hidden_sheepman
There is nothing wrong with Php, I would think that if your worried about companies looking at your resume I think they would be concerned more about the project you wrote than the language it was written in.

To add to this comment, Solving problems is more important than the language you implement the solution in. You can write good Php code and the same goes for any other language. At the end of the day the result is what matters. I personally think your putting to much emphasis on the language.

j-pb
That sounds like something a PHP developer would say ;)

I actually moved to a different country just to get a full time clojure position and it's awesome. I have so much more fun and less frustration at work .

Granted the team is also great and the product really interesting, but still I wouldn't want to do it in any less functional language.

niroze
Someone told me something 20 years ago, "adapt or get left behind" and I think that applies here.

You need to adapt to the changing technologies, even if they aren't as awesome to you personally. Why pigeon-hole yourself? I'd rather hire someone that is adaptable without stubbornness for technology (and usually an ego).

PHP used to be royal crap, but it has a ton of good stuff in it now-a-days, at least feature and performance-wise.

Being adaptable and open to learning more about programming languages will be much better for a career. Are you a programmer or not? Do you love programming or do you love a specific language only? Overcoming challenges and implementing business needs is one of the best things ever!

johnward
Anecdotally, I've been applying to a ton of jobs over the past 2 years. PHP compensation is much lower than Ruby by my observations. However, having multiple languages opens you to a wider market. I'll see "senior PHP developer" jobs that are trying to pay $40k-60k. Where those senior roles in a Ruby/RoR shop are almost always six figures.
craigmcnamara
I'd wonder why they're pressuring you to move to PHP. I've written PHP in the past, and recently started maintaining a site in PHP through a company acquisition. Normally I prefer Ruby on Rails and have used it since Rails v1.2.3. I consider PHP to be a step backwards technology and tooling wise. Laravel seems like the nicest copy of Rails, but it seems like everything nice in PHP is a crude copy of something from the Ruby/Rails ecosystems.

Frequently in PHP I found myself missing a proper REPL, yes PHP can be run interactively with `$ php -a`, but it doesn't print the last returned value, so spelunking in a running system is slow and awkward, luckily I've found Boris(https://github.com/borisrepl/boris) which is more like IRB or Pry, but it's still unpleasant when I'm trying to kill a tricky bug. On the package management front Composer is a better solution than previous PHP offerings, but it's got some quirks that make it seem unpolished compared to Bundler.

If I was given a choice PHP I would never willingly pick PHP. I suspect your company is pressuring you to move because they think they can get PHP devs at a lower cost than Ruby devs. If you're in the Bay Area there are plenty of companies that will hire you to write Ruby so you don't really have to switch if you're not comfortable with it.

jszymborski
Laravel comes with tinker (`$ php artisan tinker`) which is a pretty great REPL.
howlett
You have the opportunity to get paid to learn another language. Give it a go, if you don't like it look for something else and by that time you'll have proof that you can pick up new (not 'recent') languages quickly.

But if they ask you to work with PHP 5.3, leave.

Aeolun
Or don't be part of the problem, inform them that that version has been deprecated for years, has serious security bugs, and suggest they upgrade as soon as possible.
niftich
Learning, but especially becoming well-versed with an additional language/platform is never a backwards step.

There are places that hire solely on what language you're using right now, but there are also companies that know better, and look at your total experience.

themtutty
Do you want to work for a company / team that pre-judges based on the acronyms in your technology list?
saluki
I moved from Rails to Laravel (PHP).

If they are moving to Laravel it's a great framework, go for it. Some parts you will like even better than Rails. Hopefully it's Laravel, it's by far the best php framework. (my opinion).

Pay for Laravel projects and jobs are approaching rails work so I wouldn't worry too much about pay or opportunities.

If anything you'll be more valuable because you know both.

I would keep at least one personal rails project going so you keep up with updates, whats new and can roll in to a new rails job in the future if needed.

Keep your Rails skills sharp and you can keep Rails prominently on your resume.

Good luck.

yolesaber
AS LONG AS YOU GET MORE MONEY YOU GOOD SON
nedsma
If you're not dramatically excited to code in PHP, don't do it. I'm not comparing PHP vs Ruby/RoR vs some other tech stack, it's just that there are quite many new exciting technologies that might be a better choice. I've seen it many times developers leaving companies because they didn't find satisfying companies' new technology choices.
cweagans
PHP developer here. Highly recommend Laravel if you have a choice. It's basically PHP On Rails.

Also, as someone who has been writing PHP for what many would consider too long, I can safely say that there's always tons of work to be done. Not all of it is pretty, but it pays the bills, and there's a lot of really interesting organizations out there that you can work for.

mdholloway
PHP won't win you any cool points, but there's still a whole lot of it running in production.
Aeolun
PHP is a perfectly valid language. If your entire team is working in PHP, consider moving to PHP as well. There's nothing making it better or worse than RoR (well, maybe a few things that are slightly nasty), and having experience with another language and it's quirks is going to be quite valuable in the future.
kapv89
Career wise, no. Learning wise, yes, its a step backwards. PHP has nothing new to offer.

If you want to stick to api/backend dev, pick up node, its "async everything" mindset is very hard to turn back from once you become accustomed to it. One big benefit of this would be getting good at javascript, which can help you become a proper full stack dev(browser, and mobile with react-native).

If you want to explore systems programming, or high perf computation, golang is a good option.

Or switch to a completely new area of programming, like data science, where python has a stronghold for now.

pyb
It's fine, just leave it off your resume afterwards (or have it on there as a secondary skill) if you find it embarrassing.
[dead] pyb
It's fine, just leave it off your resume afterwards (or have it as a secondary skill
malinens
If it is Symfony/Laravel it will not be step back. I prefer Symfony myself :)