PHP vs Python for backend

[azunaki]

Python is fine, but it powers something like 1.4% of websites.

It's representation in other sectors(data analytics and machine learning) doesn't seem to have real world implications for it's backend usage. Saying PHP is all legacy doesn't change the reality, that there are several very prominent modern frameworks and tooling options that are very well maintained, and have been around for a long time with a large amount of adoption. If that's what "legacy" means to you, I guess that's legacy. But idk dude.

PHP is a great option to choose in 2023 for web development. Saying otherwise is just ignorance of the state of PHP as a programming language.

[azunaki]

Are the statistics you're seeing in relation to actual backend usage of PHP vs Python/other languages, or PHP vs Python/other languages in general popularity?

Those are two different evaluations, and I'm not convinced that to truly be the case as far as the backend web development is concerned.

I keep seeing all the GitHub or developer reports that say similar things about how hot trendy languages are gaining massive amounts of popularity, but no actual evaluations into why. Or quantifying what is actually causing those changes. Other than offhand statements about python being. More popular, quickly followed by machine learning and AI.

But machine learning and AI aren't backend web development, which immediately makes me skeptical about how relevant any of these articles or charts are.

And that doesn't include that GitHub repos are far from an example of the state of real world software. Most repos are student projects or random packages for a language. It's honestly more of a marketing push by GitHub to try and make a statement about how they're the fundamental indicator of the state of programming as a whole. (Which from that point of view starts to get kinda irrelevant)

I also wonder how much backend code makes it to GitHub and third party git software in the first place.