It was WordPress that made PHP more popular, not the framework

Tiobe Index (Programming Language World Ranking Index) is a ranking that shows the relative popularity of various programming languages. It started in 2001 and is updated every month. It counts search results from many sites to get statistics. These sites include: Google, Blogger, Wikipedia, YouTube, Baidu, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, etc.

PHP has always been ranked high on Tiobe, but recently it has been ranked higher, it was 7th in 2012 and is now 5th. One might attribute this to the release of Zend Framework 2 late last year, but there's no basis for that.

So the author began to explore why PHP’s ranking curve on Tiobe suddenly rose. Is it really caused by the release of the official framework? Here are his conclusions, roughly translated by me.

1. WordPress is the most popular PHP application

The author uses Google Trends to compare the trends of several keywords. These keywords are: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Zend Framework. Their trend charts are as shown on the cover. Show.
Introduce them. WordPress is an open source blogging program, Joomla and Drupal are both open source content management and publishing systems, Magento is an open source e-commerce program (there seems to be a Chinese e-commerce company in China called Maishen that has localized it and sells services), and Zend Framework is an official open source PHP framework. .
The most popular is WordPress, which is much more popular than other applications. The last one is Zend Framework.
In fact, these keywords are the most popular words about PHP that the author thinks. I think it is appropriate to choose these words. Just choose one framework as a representative, and the popularity of applications varies greatly, so try to choose the most famous ones. I added PHP to these words and found that the popularity of WordPress is almost close to that of PHP, so there is no problem in using "the most popular PHP application" to describe WordPress.

Second, WordPress itself is much more popular than any PHP framework

This conclusion refines the first conclusion. Don't think that you only selected one framework for comparison. In fact, all frameworks are of the same order of magnitude.

3. WordPress does not use third-party frameworks

To supplement the second conclusion...

4. It is applications that make technology popular, not frameworks

The Magento e-commerce application mentioned on the trend chart is based on Zend Framework was developed, but it is more popular than the framework. So what makes an application popular is not because of what framework it uses, but because it solves the actual problems of users.
The same goes for WordPress, it’s useful to a lot of people. When people want to install WordPress, they know about PHP technology, and they need a virtual hosting space that supports PHP. This has contributed to the popularity of PHP.

5. Extensible WordPress plug-in ecosystem

One of the most important reasons for WordPress’s popularity is its plug-in system. Plugins can do almost anything, and they make WordPress a platform, not just an application.

6. Many non-programmers started developing PHP because of WordPress

Many WordPress users are not programmers, but because they can’t find suitable plug-ins, themes, etc., they start to develop these needs themselves.

7. Pragmatism is better than idealism

Software projects must be technically beautiful, consistent, follow a good project plan, and praise design patterns.
But the above are really not as important as imagined. Many apps are created with a very practical feel in mind, focusing solely on solving real-world needs.
Comparatively speaking, many PHP frameworks seem to have been developed from another planet. They are often developed by idealistic people who focus more on design patterns.

My summary:

The author still used conclusive evidence to prove his point of view. And I also saw some things to pay attention to:

1. Too much emphasis on technology. When working in a development position, it is necessary to pay attention to technology. But when building a product yourself, the most important thing you should focus on is solving real-world problems.
2. The real problem solved by the framework is to help ordinary developers develop applications more easily and quickly based on the framework. Compared with applications, the number of users it faces is definitely several orders of magnitude smaller.
3. Perhaps, providing solutions or services for a certain popular application will be very promising. Of course, developing applications that solve real-world problems is more promising.

The above has introduced that it is WordPress that makes PHP more popular, not the framework, including aspects. I hope it will be helpful to friends who are interested in PHP tutorials.