You might want to have a look at haXe - a language that compiles to multiple backends including PHP, Javascript and Flash. It's not my favorite language by a long shot, but it's not PHP.
It does, but using haXe based on its merits isn't. It's not hard to find good reasons to avoid PHP as an implementation language; PHP is popular mostly because it's as easy platform for deployment. If a superior language[0] allows targeting that platform, it's a win-win situation. The obvious counterargument is that it makes finding developers harder, but I don't think that's the case. The Python Paradox applies here, and there are likely dozens of developers available who would jump at the chance to get paid to use haXe.
[0] I am not, at this point arguing that haXe is a better language than PHP. I don't have enough experience with haXe to make that claim, but it's not an especially high bar to clear.
We don't have to get into a debate about PHP (I don't use it either); its virtue in this scenario is that after this guy gives up on the client, someone else can easily step in and pick up the project, because everybody knows PHP.
I think the degree to which this works depends on the sophistication of the code. If it's a simple form handler, then sure, it's an advantage to be using a language that millions of people know. If it's more sophisticated, it may actually be a disadvantage; the non-technical client has to sort through hundreds of responses to a job posting with no useful means of telling applicants apart. A language like haXe currently only attracts those who are genuinely interested in better languages. Such people tend to be decent programmers, so any of the 5 or so people who respond is likely to be a good choice.
Not really. If you don't like working with a particular tool, any work that you do with that tool will be fundamentally substandard. So if the same results could be achieved with a better tool, then your work should also be better.
First, the difference between professionals and amateurs is that professionals stand behind their work even when they don't enjoy doing it.
But that's neither here nor there. If you can't stand behind doing work in a mainstream language, don't take those jobs, and accept that you're going to earn a fraction of what your peers do.
However, when you deliver product to people in a language nobody else uses, and implicitly recommend they deploy code in that language, and you do it because you're bored with PHP, and you pick the language you move to deliberately to mask the costs of using a less popular language by compiling it down to PHP, you're coming pretty close to screwing over your clients.
Happy to be wrong about this, though. I'll stop here.
> In law, malpractice is a type of negligence in which the
> misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance of a professional,
> under a duty to act, fails to follow generally accepted
> professional standards, and that breach of duty is the
> proximate cause of injury to a plaintiff who suffers damages.
Using another language is not failure to follow generally accepted professional standards, and I doubt using another language can result in damages to the client. Please don't use technical (legal) terms if you don't mean it.
(Also, HaXe is not a vanity language, unless you like the rest of us calling your favorite language a vanity language too: "Pshaw! It just compiles to ASM!")
