PHP's Unlikely Pivot to Native App Development

Description

A screenshot of an article from the publication 'Indie Hackers'. The headline reads, 'How a PHP developer turned "impossible" into $100K in 3 months 🚀'. Below the title is a stylized portrait of a man with glasses, Simon Hamp, against a pink and orange gradient background. The article text explains that Simon Hamp created NativePHP, a framework that allows developers to build native desktop and mobile applications using PHP. It notes that he has earned $100,000 in the three months since launching the mobile version. The technical humor stems from the long-standing reputation of PHP as a language strictly for web backends, often criticized for its design. The idea of using it for native UI applications is so contrary to industry norms that it's considered 'impossible,' making this success story both surprising and ironically amusing to experienced developers who have witnessed decades of language wars

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Comments

Anonymous ★ Top Pick A developer making $100k with a PHP framework for native apps is the tech equivalent of finding out your grandpa's old ham radio can now stream 4K video. You're not sure how, you're deeply suspicious, but you can't argue with the results

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

A developer making $100k with a PHP framework for native apps is the tech equivalent of finding out your grandpa's old ham radio can now stream 4K video. You're not sure how, you're deeply suspicious, but you can't argue with the results
Anonymous

Some of us spent a decade arguing whether PHP even counts as a language - turns out it’s a cross-platform revenue framework if you add a Stripe key and a Product Hunt launch
Anonymous

Turns out the real 'impossible' was convincing developers that PHP could do something other than generate HTML with mysql_real_escape_string() - though I'm sure the $100k helped silence the 'PHP is dead' crowd faster than any benchmark ever could
Anonymous

Finally, a PHP developer who found a way to make desktop apps crash in a language traditionally reserved for crashing web servers. But seriously, building native apps with PHP is like convincing your CTO that MongoDB is a good fit for financial transactions - theoretically possible, surprisingly successful, and it makes everyone question their assumptions about technology constraints. The real achievement here isn't the $100k; it's getting developers to willingly choose PHP for something other than WordPress plugins
Anonymous

NativePHP: Finally letting PHP escape the LAMP stack to segfault natively on your phone
Anonymous

The real trick isn’t PHP on mobile - it’s monetizing the world’s largest “we’re not rewriting this” budget
Anonymous

Turns out the fastest cross‑platform runtime is revenue: while architects debate a Go rewrite, NativePHP bundles a runtime, ships, and hits $100k before procurement schedules kickoff
@Similacrest 1y

he deserves 100k if he promises to never touch keyboard again /lh
@selfavor 1y

how a PHP developer turned "impossible" into useless
Sure Not 1y

I once compiled a TypeScript code base with V8 engine into native DLL/SO library.
@PurpleTigrr 1y

Another case of really shit idea
@deadgnom32 1y

top
@SheepGod 1y

oy no need to say that over a library you dont like
@patsany_horosh_mne_v_dm_pisat 1y

kiss?
@patsany_horosh_mne_v_dm_pisat 1y

got it thx
1. @patsany_horosh_mne_v_dm_pisat 1y
  
  wait a second....
@razordude 1y

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTQpx0dmaStfDM1sH9toH0g0hheTQ_pru9q2AlhOZ0_BRBLl5ND8u_uaTNglTH_s1muXNhm
@patsany_horosh_mne_v_dm_pisat 1y

that's actually pretty sick ngl. Just imagine how useful PHP can get
@Agent1378 1y

Php is ok, there are more then enough shitty compiled languages, what's wrong with getting PHP too. What's more interesting is the question is it just PHP VM bundled with source code or byte code in one executable or is it really natively compiled in tru native binary to run on "bare metal"
@Johnny_bit 1y

People saying it's bad... My brothers, there's already tons of "native" apps that are just chrome running sanboxed js...
1. @PurpleTigrr 1y
  
  Electron desktop apps are also shit lol
  
  @Johnny_bit 1y
  
  That's my point :)
@spacenuke 1y

I made the equivalent of Chef out of PHP before Chef existed and managed thousands of Windows workstations with it. It was… okay.
@qwnick 1y

mobile app for what?
@drznpy 1y

Desktop apps? PhpGTK greets you from the far 2005
Mario 1y

i would accept to make javascript the only programming language in the world if it meant deleting php from history. that's how much I hate it
1. @deadgnom32 1y
  
  but why? PHP is a good language.
2. @deadgnom32 1y
  
  way better than Java
  
  Mario 1y
  
  not even close
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  to being the worst and most useless language? sure
  
  Mario 1y
  
  for being the most used language in the world in the last 30 years
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  things I can do in PHP with 1 line of code, in Java will require a software architect and a CS degree.
  
  Mario 1y
  
  skill issue
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  no I just don't like bdsm. i worked with Java for 6 years
  
  Mario 1y
  
  use python then
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  I use python.
  
  Deleted Account 1y
  
  i use c,cpp the python owner
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  yes, use C / C++ / Rust instead of Java if you need performance. but actually many libraries on python are so well optimized, that it will take a lot of time to get to that speed using raw C++ directly. I looked into some fuzzy search lib on python, and wanted to actually just steal 1 function from it, to avoid dependency. well. it was in C++ where they detected specific SIMD processor features on initialization and injected ASM code to get the maximum perf. ended up keeping this as a dep.
  
  Deleted Account 1y
  
  good talks, noted ✍️
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  never ever going back to it. I will better cook burgers and sell beer. or clean the streets
  
  @itsTyrion 1y
  
  Ah, so trauma from shitty enterprise spaghetti Java
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  5M lines, half year work of team of 200 engineers to change 1 column name in database
  
  @itsTyrion 1y
  
  Practical examples?
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  copy($url, $filename)
  
  @itsTyrion 1y
  
  Could tell you from the top of my head. This is simpler in PHP because it's made for web tho, no?
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  it's just download a file. it's a common backend task
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  in Java you need to open a stream, read it step by step, assemble it together, open file stream, close the streams. and so on. but it's such a common task — that I don't understand, why isn't there just a function for that
  
  @TheFloofyFloof 1y
  
  Apache Commons IO
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  the code in PHP will literally be 1 line only with perfect abstraction function — 2 params nothing else
  
  @TheFloofyFloof 1y
  
  Yeah but then you have to use PHP
  
  @deadgnom32 1y
  
  yes. and write 1 line of code
Mario 1y

although it sucks for big projects

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PHP's Unlikely Pivot to Native App Development

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