The folks over at Kinsta.com have put together some end of the year usage statistics for PHP across the web trying to answer the "is PHP dead?" question.

You’ve probably heard about how the new WordPress Gutenberg editor brings block-based editing to WordPress.

There is a change going on behind the scenes that casual users might not notice, that Gutenberg blocks are made using JavaScript (React, JSX, and ES6), not PHP. That change, along with other shifts in web development, might have you wondering, “is PHP dead?”.

People have been calling for the death of PHP for years now (you can find “Is PHP Dead?” posts as far back as 2011). And yet, PHP still persists… In this post, we’ll dig into the data and show how PHP isn’t close to being dead (even if you really wish it were).

The article talks about how, despite PHP not being the "most modern programming language", it's still in use by almost 80% of the websites on the internet (8 out of 10 sites). While the number is declining slightly, it's still large chunk of the web based on the reporting from the X-Powered-By header. They also point out that PHP is faster and better than ever with new, impressive features being added constantly and new versions being regularly released.

They also note that it's easy to find PHP developers (with actual experience) and, while you don't have to like PHP, it's definitely far from being dead.

On his site Josh Lockhart, author of Modern PHP and the Slim framework has shared advice for aspiring PHP developers, mainly centering around one core idea.

As a fledgling PHP developer, I aspired to be in the same league as legendary figures like Cal Evans, Chris Hartjes, Larry Garfield, Anthony Ferrara, Paul Jones, Sebastian Bergmann, Taylor Otwell, et al. I consider these folks members of PHP's inner sanctum, so to speak. They are decision makers, tool builders, and opinion shapers.

[...] My advice to aspiring PHP developers: there is no great Wizard of OZ. There are only opinionated men and women behind a veil of authority who bicker of politics and standards. It's not magical. It's messy. It's a minefield of polarizing politics, sensitivities, and opinions.

He points out that, no matter why you say or do, there'll always be someone that will take it the wrong way - it's just human nature. He uses a recent example of an interaction he had with another member of the PHP community around contributor guidelines on a project.

Aspiring PHP developers, stay above the fray. Don't seek out a Wizard of OZ. He does not exist. PHP's inner sanctum isn't worth your time. Instead, do your research, recognize and avoid propaganda, and trailblaze your own path.

On the Paragon Initiative blog they've posted a guide to handling automatic security updates for PHP developers, helping to prevent security-related issues by keeping your libraries up to date.

Most of the software security vulnerabilities known to man are preventable by careful development practices. [...] However, even if you're trying to do everything right, eventually we all make mistakes and ship exploitable software.

[...] By making updates manual rather than automatic, you're forcing your customers to take all the responsibility for making sure that your mistakes don't hurt their business. Only a very small minority of your customers might prefer the responsibility of verifying and applying each update themselves. [...] Automatic security updates reduce the interval between points 2 and 3 from possibly infinite to nearly zero. That's clearly a meaningful improvement over manual patch management.

The post then walks through the aspects of a secure automatic update system that includes offline cryptographic signatures, transport layer security and separation of privileges (who will perform the actual update). The author gets into a bit of detail for each item on the list, explaining how the system should be set up and some tools you can use to start working up the process in your own applications.

On the Toptal.com site a new article has been published from author Ilya Sanosyan with his list of top ten development mistakes he sees PHP developers make leading to more buggy code.

PHP makes it relatively easy to build a web-based system, which is much of the reason for its popularity. But its ease of use notwithstanding, PHP has evolved into quite a sophisticated language with many frameworks, nuances, and subtleties that can bite developers, leading to hours of hair-pulling debugging. This article highlights ten of the more common mistakes that PHP developers need to beware of.

Included in his list are common issues like:

• Leaving dangling array references after foreach loops
• Confusion about returning by reference vs. by value
• Performing queries in a loop
• Assuming $_POST will always contain your POST data
• Ignoring coding standards

For each item on his list he provides good code examples and explanation of both why it's an issue and what can be done to prevent it.

On the Noupe.com site they've posted an article talking about the WordPress REST API that's been included by default in the project and how it will affect developers on the platform.

With the advent of WordPress 4.4 last year in December, we saw the inclusion of the first half of REST API in the WordPress Core, and the rest of it is expected to be with us in the upcoming major release of WordPress. [...] The community is abuzz with all talks about how important REST API will soon be for WordPress development, and how it is going to change the way developers code and interact with WP.

So, how is REST API going to affect the WordPress users and developers, and what exactly will we be able to accomplish using it?

In the article they talk about the impact that the API will have on the "rise of Javascript" in the WordPress application and the role PHP could play in it all. They also talk about cross-platform integrations the REST API makes possible, the Calypso interface that was recently announced and how it opens up a new world of mobile application possibilities.

The Acquia blog has posted the second part in their series sharing tips for developers around web accessibility. In this new post they focus on page content and making things accessible.

We’re at the halfway point of what hopefully has been a helpful guide for developers to make a website accessible for all visitors. (If you missed the first part of this two-part series, please click here.) In this blog, we’ll review how instructional text, navigation, and other parts of development can allow those with blindness and low vision, deafness, and other disabilities to make full use of a website.

In the post they share helpful tips on:

• There’s a Proper Place for Instructional Text
• A Search that Searches When Instructed
• Jump Directly to Main Content
• An Easier Way to Zoom and Shrink
• Know What to Show; What to Hide

Each item comes with a brief summary (and screenshots where it helps) to illustrate the point.

On the New Relic blog today there's a new list posted of the 25 PHP developers they suggest you follow, both on Twitter and via their code contributions.

Building PHP frameworks is hard, but following these PHP source and framework committers on Twitter is easy. You’ll learn lots of interesting bits about what’s happening in their respective communities, and if you want to see where the PHP and PHP framework communities are going next, just watch your feed for these folks.

Included in their list are PHP notables like:

• Sebastian Bergmann
• Evan Coury
• Cal Evans
• Rasmus Lerdorf
• Fabien Potencier
• Igor Wiedler

Check out the full post for the rest of the list!

Anna Filina has a new post to her site today suggesting that developers are like athletes, they need to practice before they can be good at what they do.

Think of a developer as an athlete. He or she is aiming for a medal in a competition. A figure skater can't just perform a triple axel in the Olympics after seeing it done on television. This requires a lot of practice, so that when the time comes, the performance is flawless. Of course, programming doesn't have to be flawless. One must remain pragmatic, yet it still requires practice before a concept can be safely implemented without breaking the project or missing deadlines. Who will pay for that practice?

She relates the development manager to the coach of a sports team, being the one that guides the developers into being all they can be and trying out new ideas in the process. She also recommends making use of idle time between projects to prototype, do R&D and learn in general.

Developers need a sandbox. If you don't give it to them, you can end up with one of the following issues. Your entire project could become a sandbox, making it unstable. [...] If you want your developers to get better, allow time for practice, not just learning. It's necessary, easy to do when planned and provides countless benefits to your company. Let me know how that advice worked out for you.

Over on the blog for the Sunshine PHP conference (happening next month, February 8th and 9th in Miami, Florida) they've posted a clarification about the intentions of the event and a reminder that it's a "by developers, for developers" event.

Recently we overheard SunshinePHP being grouped together with commercial “for profit” events and conferences, which prompted us to write this blog post to clear things up. The SunshinePHP Developer Conference is NOT a profit driven event, and is actually a community led event by developers, for developers. Early on we tried to make this more public, but it appears the message was lost with everything the conference contains. (we’ve made it too good)

They note that any profits made from the event will be going back into future events (as put on by the user group) and the PHP community. This kind of thing is similar to some of the other PHP user group-organized conference that have popped up over the last year - good to see the trend continue.

If you're interested in the conference itself, you can find out more on the main event site or just go ahead and register for the event. You can still pick up your tickets until February 1st for about $220 USD (General admission) or $160 USD (Student).

If you're a PHP developer and are working on distributed applications (or might be in the future), you should probably read through this new article on PHPMaster.com with 8 common fallacies about these applications and their needs.

These fallacies directly relate to us as PHP developers since we build distributed applications each and every day. We build mashups, applications that interact with SOAP and REST services, authenticate users via Facebook, Google, or Twitter APIs, retrieve information from remote databases and caching services, etc. Make no mistake, we’re building distributed computer applications. Given that we are building distributed applications, it’s important that we understand the eight fallacies and how they affect us.

Among the list of their fallacies are things like:

• The Network is Reliable
• Bandwidth is Infinite
• The Network is Secure
• There is One Administrator

Check out the full article for the rest of them and summaries of each.