Is Facebook Still Written in PHP?
How PHP Still Powers Facebook’s Backend
Understanding Facebook’s Legacy PHP Codebase
With more than 2 billion active users, Facebook is the biggest social network in the world and one of the most widely used websites. As such, it has to be able to handle a tremendous amount of traffic, data, and user interactions. To do this, Facebook relies on a variety of technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and most notably, PHP.
Facebook’s use of PHP has been controversial over the years. Is it still the best choice for such a large and complex website? In this article, we’ll look at how PHP is still powering the backend of Facebook and why it’s still an effective choice.
Understanding Facebook’s Legacy PHP Codebase
Facebook’s codebase is huge, with millions of lines of code written in a wide variety of languages. However, the bulk of the code is written in PHP. This legacy codebase, which is written in a mix of procedural and object-oriented PHP, forms the backbone of the Facebook platform.
Despite the size and complexity of the codebase, Facebook is still able to maintain it without too much difficulty. This is due to the scalability of PHP, which allows the code to be easily adapted and extended. PHP is also widely supported, which makes it easier to find developers with the necessary skills.
How PHP Still Powers Facebook’s Backend
While the frontend of Facebook is now written in a mix of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the backend is still largely powered by PHP. This is because PHP is a fast, reliable, and secure language that is well-suited to powering the backend of a website.
Facebook is also taking advantage of the latest features in PHP. For example, they are using PHP 7 and its improved performance features to speed up their backend code. They are also using the new asynchronous programming features in PHP to make the code more efficient.
Conclusion
It’s clear that PHP is still a major part of the Facebook codebase and is helping to power the backend of the website. Despite the fact that the frontend is now written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the backend is still largely written in PHP. This is because PHP is fast, reliable, and secure, and is well-suited to powering the backend of a website. Thanks to the scalability of PHP, Facebook has been able to maintain its legacy codebase for many years, and is taking advantage of the latest features in PHP to make the code even more efficient.