---
title: "My Stance on Toxicity About Programming Languages"
date: 2022-05-23
basename: ../against-toxicity-programming-languages
tags:
  - toxicity
  - culture
---

I have been toxic and hateful in the past about programming language choice. I
now realize this is a mistake. I am sorry if my being toxic about programming
languages has harmed you.

By toxic, I mean doing things or saying things that imply people are lesser for
having different experience and preferences about programming languages. I have
seen people imply that using languages like PHP or Node.js means that they are
idiots or similar. This is toxic behavior and I do not want to be a part of it
in the future.

I am trying to not be toxic about programming languages in the future. Each
programming language is made to solve the tasks it was designed to solve and
being toxic about it helps nobody. By being toxic about programming languages
like this, I only serve to spread toxicity and then see it be repeated as the
people that look up to me as a role model will then strive to repeat my
behavior. This cannot continue. I do not want my passion projects to become
synonymous with toxicity and vitriol. I do not want to be known as the person
that hates $PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE. I want to break the cycle.

With this, I want to confirm that I will not write any more attack articles
about programming languages. I am doing my best to ensure that this will also
spread to my social media actions, conference talks and as many other things as
I can.

I challenge all of you readers to take this challenge too. Don't spread toxicity
about programming languages. All of the PHP hate out there is a classic example
of this. PHP is a viable programming language that is used by a large percentage
of the internet. By insinuating that everyone using PHP is inferior (or worse)
you only serve to push people away and worst case cause them to be toxic about
the things you like. Toxicity breeds toxicity and the best way to stop it is to
be the one to break the cycle and have others follow in your footsteps.

I have been incredibly toxic about PHP in the past. PHP is one of if not the
most widely used programming languages for writing applications that run on a
web server. Its design makes it dead simple to understand how incoming HTTP
requests relate to files on the disk. There is no compile step. The steps to
make a change are to open the file on the server, make the change you want to
see and press F5. This is a developer experience that is unparalleled in most
HTTP frameworks that I've seen in other programming environments. PHP users
deserve better than to be hated on. PHP is an incredibly valid choice and I'm
sure that with the right linters and human review in the mix it can be as secure
as "properly written" services in Go, Java and Rust.

<XeblogConv name="Cadey" mood="enby">
  Take the "don't be toxic about programming languages" challenge! Just stop
  with the hate, toxicity and vitriol. Our jobs are complicated enough already.
  Being toxic to eachother about how we decide to solve problems is a horrible
  life decision at the least and actively harmful to people's careers at most.
  Just stop.
</XeblogConv>

---

<XeblogConv name="Mara" mood="hacker">
  This post is not intended as a sub-blog. If you feel that this post is calling
  you out, please don't take this personally. There is a lot of toxicity out
  there and it will take a long time to totally disarm it, even with people
  dedicated to doing it. This is an adaptation of [this twitter
  thread](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1527765025561186304).
</XeblogConv>
