Should I Learn Perl or PHP?

Should I learn Perl or PHP?

Perl is popular today because of CPAN. It gives Perl a massive number of libraries for handling web stacks.

I’ve heard Perl is fading except on web servers. It isn’t even being used on web applications, and that’s the future of the web.

That much is true. It isn’t even used much for cloud hosted applications, though the cloud server might run PHP.

Which one should I learn?

PHP is on more web servers. It would be wise to learn it if only to support it.

I don’t want to limit myself to a dying language. I’d study Lisp or Haskell if I wanted to do that, since I’d at least get praise from my computer science professor.

Perl has a lot of hard-core supporters. PHP users are no where near as devout when it comes to supporting PHP.

But PHP solves a number of internet architecture issues by design. Does that mean PHP is better than Perl?

PHP has had a lot of bad programs written in it. In fact, it is possible to write a bad program in any language.

Let’s say I learned PHP. Can I use it for other types of programming?

PHP can be used for programs not on the web server; it just shouldn’t be your first choice.

Perl and PHP were both similar in that they were popular with newbie coders. At least when they first come out.

PHP’s biggest limitation is that it is domain specific, hurting its popularity today.

It sounds like PHP has too many limitations. If I have a choice, I’m going with Perl.

That’s a fine pearl of wisdom.

I can always find an older, wiser programmer from the good old days of Windows XP to handle PHP support if I need it.

It’s not that old.