Depends.

What are your objectives? Why are you learning it? Is PHP your first language? Are you trying to get a job, get general stuff done, or have a specific project in mind? Are you primarily looking at web, text processing, database?

My own thoughts on PHP today is it is a very capable language, and probably as worthy of learning as Python, Ruby, or any of the other mainstream scripting languages - again depends what your objectives are.

In other words - how long is a piece of string? ;)

I see where you are coming from, but I have a built a few big XML processing tools in PHP that run quite happily on the command line. Having said that, it was a few years back, and I tend to reach for Python for text/XML processing these days...

PHP is rather potent and I absolutely love it. Built lots of non-web stuff in PHP myself.

Actually COVID stopped a planned relocation for me.

To be more exact, I tend to split time between two main locations and was planning to increase the time in the other location, but the bug put that on hold sadly...

It sounds like quitting to take a less stressful (but probably less well paid) job would be a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

I would think seriously about taking some sick leave. Work a bit on your evening projects during the day. Get plenty of sleep and exercise in fresh air. Switch off the news and listen to classical music instead. Maybe this sounds lame but I did this when I was going through a rough patch and my mental health rebounded.

Good luck!

Had the same problem. I just write a blog for myself primarily, with notes on the things I'm working on, code, tools etc. I'm surprised by how often I go back and read my own articles, so I take that as a sign the idea was a success! :)

For me still Python. It just makes it easier for me to build solutions to the everyday problems I need to solve. When I have a little itch that needs scratching Python is what I reach for first.

Although I'd been a dabbler with Python for many years, about 6 years ago I had a problem to solve. Basically it was to spider and download a static site, clean up the content, add metadata, and pop that content into a database. At the time I was mostly working with PHP for such things, but decided on a whim to give Python ago. A couple of hours later it was done. Python made that project so painless. I've never looked back.

Since those days I've built many projects with Python, including web apps (using Flask), utilities, database apps and so on, and never regret choosing Python...

I've seen many people who like Python. I might say it's a nice language as well!

I wrote my own static site generator in Python. Source format is GitHub-flavoured Markdown. Both VSCode and Emacs have nice plugins for Markdown. Nothing fancy but it does the job. There are plenty of static site generators out there (a nice one I've used is Hugo), but the learning experience from writing my own has been superb.

I think this is good advice. Tune in to problems. Listening is harder than it seems because we tend to apply our own filters.

For example, I did some work for a friend in a non-IT business, and at first I didn't pay attention because I thought his problem was trivial - but then realized to him it wasn't. You'd be surprised what companies need help with.

Listening, like a fit body, is one of the rare things that cannot be bought solely with money.

Move on. You deserve a better company than that.

If you really must! A little static site generator is a nice one. The great thing is, it's the kind of thing you can pick up whenever you have a spare few minutes, as there's always some new little feature you can add...

Ah yeah, and I could probably build it using a new language I know nothing about just for fun. Great idea!