I think most of the technologies you listed got sunk by changes in the tech eco-system as a whole. FoxPro was killed by MS but COBOL and dBase are still alive in there own niche's. I think PHP will suffer the same fate, there's definitely better languages for writing full scale SaaS applications in (Ruby and Python seem like the big front-runners) but for a simple site you want to upload via FTP and forget I see no reason anyone would want to put much effort into "replacing" PHP.
On a related note, much of PHP's reputation isn't really deserved in my opinion. There's a lot of awful code out there, but it's eco-system now has a pretty scale-worthy stack (laravel/symfony/ect, php-fpm and nginx) and like any language, it has some poor design decisions, but for the most part bad code is due to bad programmers rather than the language itself.
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From: keith smith <klsmith2020@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: Main PLUG discussion list <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>
Date: Friday, April 5, 2013 12:25 PM
To: Main PLUG discussion list <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>
Subject: PHP lifespan
Hi, I do not want to start any flame wars. I would like to open a discussion though.
I was thinking of what the life span of PHP might be. I have lived through a number of them.
In the early 80's COBOL was still taught and was in use. I know it is still around, however I do not think anyone would choose COBOL for a new project.
I also lived through the whole dBase, Clipper, FoxBase+, and Visual FoxPro cycle. FoxPro was acquired by M$ 15 or 18 years ago, which started it's slow decline. M$ finally killed it last year.
So I am wondering about PHP. What might it's lifespan be? What might be the next big thing... etc.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.
------------------------
Keith Smith
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