PHP and other popular languages

[futureproof]

I've been cracking at php for a while now, but recently a few friends from a local coding community said I'd be doing myself a favor by checking out Ruby on Rails or python.

This sparked some curiosity and I've been trying to investigate differences between the three: My consensus from internet-research to this point is: That if you like PHP, Ruby on Rails & python are crap, and vice-versa :rofl:

Some say the way PHP is designed, makes it suitable only for small projects. They say that it can get very confusing and messy/breakable in a large scale web-environment.

I'm not choosing my religion just yet, as php is proving to be lots of fun, but I'd definitely consider learning all 3 if possible. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[bacterozoid]

They say that it can get very confusing and messy/breakable in a large scale web-environment.

This is true for any programming language if you don't take the time to plan and practice proper coding techniques.

PHP is spectacular, fast, and made for the web. I can't speak to the other two as I have no experience with them.

[Fou-Lu]

Saying PHP isn't manageable is in the eye of the beholder. Its not more difficult to manage C#, Java, C, etc projects than its is a PHP one, just a matter of how you do it. Size is irrelevant when it comes to management.
As for python, I'd definitly check that one out. Python is an incredibly useful language much like perl is. Ruby on the other hand is going nowhere best I can tell, and I don't suspect that it will ever become the next big thing like people thought it would.

I'd use PHP if its mainly web based, and Python or Perl if its evenly balanced for desktop and web, and Java, C#, C, etc for mainly desktop apps. The language itself is mearly a tool, choose the best one for the job at hand.