PHP and React for Developers Old and New (Mostly Old)

The photo at the top shows a wartime propeller plane flying wing to wing with a modern jet. That is roughly how I feel at the volunteer coding evenings, where I am usually the oldest person in the room by about thirty years. I spent my working life as an engineer, wrote a fair bit of code along the way (including some PHP back when websites had visitor counters), and retired thinking I was done with it. Then the food bank needed a better volunteer rota, and here we are.

What surprised me is how approachable both tools are. A few notes for anyone, of any age, thinking of giving it a go.

PHP: old, and none the worse for it

1. Easy to start: the syntax is plain and you can see results in a browser the same afternoon. I had a working sign-up form before my tea went cold. Well, nearly.
2. Plenty to read: PHP has been around long enough that almost every question already has a tutorial, a forum thread or a page in the manual.
3. A big community: whenever I got stuck, someone had been stuck in exactly the same place and written down how they got out.

React: new to me, and kinder than expected

1. Components: building a screen from small reusable pieces suits an engineer's brain. It is modular design with a new name.
2. Shared work: people publish ready-made components, so you rarely start from nothing.
3. It's JavaScript: one of the most widely used languages around, so help is everywhere, including from my grandson.
4. Good documentation: clear enough for a beginner and deep enough for the young ones who already know everything.

Put the two together with MySQL for the data, Next.js for the web and React Native for phones, and you have a stack that welcomes beginners without boring the experts. If an old engineer can get a rota working, so can you :)