Dear PHP,

I’m sure you noticed that I have been a bit distant lately. Our relationship hasn’t been functioning as well as it used to and I don’t know which one of us is to blame.

I know you’re going through some changes right now. Some are odd, but I can understand; like when people ask your version number and you tell them you’re 5 turning 7. I get it, 6 was a bad time when not many people understood you. I respect that you took some time, got organized, and are putting version 6 behind you. But I’m also changing and I want more out my application’s life cycle than you can give me.

I know you and MySQL are close and have been for some time but recently I’ve realized just how inflexible it is and even you two sometimes don’t get along.

Remember the other day when we were datetime picking a movie? You tried telling MySQL but it just wouldn’t accept it. Like always I had to step in and manage conflicts between the two of you.

I also feel like this relationship is a little one sided. I’m always calling you but you never call me back. You respond, don’t get me wrong, but I’m always starting the conversation. It’s just not the same as realtime communication.

Before I continue I want to apologize for the other day when I was getting down to business in the bedroom and I called console.log instead of var_dump. It was late, I was falling asleep, and it was an accident, but I knew I had made a mistake when you threw that error across my screen. The whole incident made me think that I might have a confession to make. It might be hard to process but I need to get it out.

You know I work with other languages and I’m close with some like ActionScript. I’ve even introduced you to each other a few times. But recently I’ve been building something with a new language. Our relationship is just developing right now, but I think it’s going somewhere new and exciting. You actually have worked a lot with one of it’s relatives, JavaScript.

It’s name is Node and it’s doing things for me that you haven’t been able to do.

It’s really close with MongoDB. They get along better than you and MySQL ever have. There is rarely a conflict and they always agree about things.

It also calls me as much as I call it. We sometimes call each other for hours and it never gets tired or says it’s gotta crash for the night. That is good realtime communication.

I don’t want you to misunderstand. I can never replace you. We will still work together but for now I need to follow my heart and try something new.

Thank you for understanding.

Alan