Php is probably my favorite backend language, but I think the one issue that php faces is scalability. Php is very hard for giant projects, now sure you can use a framework like Laravel to try to make php code more scalable, but the issue with using a framework is reusing code for like trying to combine it with other languages. Php as a language though is very useful for backend development at a quick pace, but I feel the scope of using php backend isnt worth the ease of use. I still use php and will continue to use it, but Im trying to grasp javascript more so I can transition to something like node.js for speed. Of course php lately is still realy fast I mean since php 7 php has been faster than python backends, and it will continue to improve. People who say php sucks still seem to think we are in the days where we would escape every string with php 5. But php isnt just as efficient when it comes to server logic like node.js or even maybe an aging language like java. The only chance php has for largescale projects is to transpile code into C with hiphop or some type of translation where you take php code and output a more efficient backend language. Now that doesn't mean php is bad for like database management with SQL, but Im talking more about making a social network with php. Most social networks don't use php as much as they do, facebook for example was built pretty much solely on html-css and mysql with php has now pretty much translated all the php code to C++. Most social networks now use some type of python, ruby, or js. Php is just not good for social networking, can it be done of course it can, is it efficient maybe not. Php can definitely run a decent sized social network like what we have here with myspace.windows93 and it can get big, but overtime it will just not be worth it with the headaches you will have to deal with.