Programming Languages & Network Effects
PHP is a once huge programming language used in website and backend development. Now it might not be even recognizable to some programmers. While it used to be synonymous with these areas, it has since fallen far as competing languages like Python, C, or Javascript, take its place among the most popular languages in use for these purposes. The world of programming languages is known to have many languages that come and go as alternatives can quickly overtake existing options, making the decisions behind learning programming languages and using them a complicated system that carries many variables. One perspective that is interesting to analyze with the use of network models is how the popularity of languages can correlate with network effects.
For students it is in your best interest to learn the languages most prevalent at the time when you are applying for work, right now these are languages like Python, C, or JavaScript. If one of these were to falter in popularity as PHP has, it drastically reduces the incentive to learn the language as this reduces the potential to find work given this is the language you put forward. On the other side, especially with start-ups, the most popular languages are generally the ones chosen to use in implementing whatever software endeavor the company plans on working on. Given these trends, the power-law holds a lot of influence given the pace of this field, where it is easy for a large language to grow simply off of its current popularity. The cascade effect is quite strong given how when a new language begins to overtake an older one this incentivizes both new programmers to learn the newer languages, as well as for new/changing programming-oriented companies to shift towards the latest language, and on top of that schools and universities are most interested in offering the languages that will produce students with the most potential in the workforce. This scenario creates a market for programming languages that is quite volatile, as the members of it are so quickly adaptable to fit whatever’s the best/biggest option at a given time. With the amount of information people have access to as far as programming languages, it makes sense that the amount of factors available that can influence decisions in so many places ensures a degree of flexibility that makes a language like PHP go from a top language to a fading one as quickly as it has happened.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-languages-why-this-former-favourite-is-sliding-down-the-rankings/