Also a major overlooked factor in PHP's documentation success is having a specific URL for each function. Some documentation sites use #anchors to jump to spots in a document (ex: boostrap), but it's not good enough. What ends up happening is people search Google for something granular like "mysql concat" and end up on tutorial sites like w3schools. Why? Because the MySQL documentation throws CONCAT() into a giant messy page called "String Functions and Operators": https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/string-functions.htm...
Google "mysql concat" and see for yourself. Giant one-page docs are terrible. PHP got it right from the beginning.
Which also results in each function having its own comment section, where users can post further examples and pitfalls with that function. These often end up significantly larger and more informative than StackOverflow.
Google "mysql concat" and see for yourself. Giant one-page docs are terrible. PHP got it right from the beginning.