Even in 2021, any new server-side web app with even a vain hope of being installed by people who are tech savvy but not modern web nerds should probably still be written in PHP. True or false?

@chipotle True.

@petebrown @chipotle Isn’t it still really easy with PHP to make a coding mistake that leaves the service open to more security holes than Swiss cheese?

@chipotle Hmm, depends. Maybe something with Docker or Buildpack would work, and instructions on how to deploy it with Heroku, or Dokku if you want to run it on VPSs like Linode.

@chipotle That’s especially true for me. At one point I looked at the Kirby CMS for my blog, but having to self-host in tandem with my lack of PHP knowledge made me shy away.

@chipotle Node's trivial to deploy, you literally unzip, type "npm install" where package.json lives, "npm start" or whatever to run the startup script (defined in package.json). Much less of a biohazard dumpster fire than PHP is.

@mdhughes Node seems to be the one that comes up most often in responses. When I lay checked it didn't seem to be quite that easy in practice, but that was a while ago.