I know it sounds childish but PHP is lame as hell same as java. Rust or go would have definitely been a cooler choice. I mean PHP gets the job done, but still....

Modern PHP is quite performant and nice to work with and it's still improving! Also frameworks like Laravel is very established.

When comparing the time when I use PHP and JavaScript, I love the simplicity and versatility of JavaScript but PHP's strongly typed (with runtime support) and object oriented language often make more sense imo.

I think the strong benefit of using JavaScript for backend comes down to being able to have unified full-stack codebases, one language fits all kind of thing.

As a single developer taking on a passion project you go with what you know.

Also it must have been near impossible to have foreseen the insane explosion of popularity that has happened here the last few days.

Even then if you build something for passion you choose something that make you happy to use, however esoteric or impractical that may be to others, or how it would be perceived. Most probably it was never thought to be exposed in such a massive way, and certainly not as soon after the project was started (we're talking month(s) here).

Anyhow, for this project from the looks of it it is working fantastic.

Personally I've not used PHP for years but now I'm actually intrigued to take a new look at it.

There's a sister project at my work that still uses PHP. It did surprise me, but it's very well written and easy to maintain. I reckon php will be around for a while yet.

@WatTyler No really. I have seen that PhP developers are moving to other languages, but at the same time I have been involved in new projects using it (I'm not a PhP developer).