The key to becoming a person who thinks PHP is great now is to primarily use features that have existed for more than 5 years. For me, PHP 7 was PHP 5 that was faster and had some nice little bits of new syntax. They started down the type system road but I avoided it then.
Now it seems like the basic type system is in place, great. This new stuff in the article I'll probably start using it when 8.4 drops.
5 years is an exaggeration, but staying a version or two behind really helps you stay sane.
By the way I found Hack/HHVM thoroughly disappointing. Tried running some fairly complex apps on it and it felt like they reimagined the legacy baggage. Seems like PHP itself borrowed a lot of ideas from it though.
Now it seems like the basic type system is in place, great. This new stuff in the article I'll probably start using it when 8.4 drops.
5 years is an exaggeration, but staying a version or two behind really helps you stay sane.
By the way I found Hack/HHVM thoroughly disappointing. Tried running some fairly complex apps on it and it felt like they reimagined the legacy baggage. Seems like PHP itself borrowed a lot of ideas from it though.