Backend programming languages?

[Celosia]

So I have a couple of questions pertaining to pet site development. Is there a particular backend language that is best suited for developing a pet site? And is Node.js viable for developing pet sites? I've already chosen to learn Node and I'd like to use it on the backend for my project but find myself continually second-guessing my choice as a newcomer to programming.

I know that many of you here use and swear by PHP but my impression is PHP is or is becoming outdated technology, and as a beginner I would like to learn something more modern. Thoughts? Any advice from more experienced programmers would be greatly appreciated!

[Design1online]

This really depends on what kind of game you're making. If you're making a text based game then it's a viable option but it's really not necessary unless you are anticipating huge scale problems or you need to do server side rendering. If you're making a multiplayer game that needs multi-threading and lots of server side processing then it makes more sense to use NodeJS.

Ultimately, you can really use any back end programming language you want but which languages you choose should take into consideration their strengths/weaknesses and how they are best suited to the game you're trying to build. You don't want to choose something that ends up backing your game into a corner because of it's limitations.

PHP has not become outdated but it's certainly dropped in popularity. Personally, I think it does a really good job of keeping up more so than a lot of other programming languages -- I mean it took Javascript from 1999 until 2009 to release a new version with improvements and it took until 2011 to even imagine using JS as a server side language whereas PHP has always been one.

https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_versions.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP#Release_history

[Anoua]

I think NodeJS would be fine for a backend language, depending on what you are planning for your site, it would be better for some applications. I don't have a lot of personal Node experience to really speak much on that front though.

As for PHP I use PHP regularly for work and with my own personal projects. It's not dying anytime soon though some people seem to think so. It's just not true. There are still a lot of jobs for it and lots of new projects using it amongst those jobs. The language is evolving and growing. If you want a heavy real time application, then NodeJS is probably better for that. But there are plenty of games that PHP works well for too. It honestly just depends what you are doing.

There are a lot of obsolute and old PHP tutorials out there though. So you do have to watch for that. 

[Celosia]

Just wanted to come back and say thanks for the responses. I'm sticking to what I've committed to learning already. My ideal game will be similar to a breeding sim with extensive lore unlocked via questing system. Animals' images will be dynamically generated within a limited range of "colours" (a preset palette) and patterns, think Flight Rising's colour wheel except genes would also be dynamic. Other features will include some form of battle (including PVP) and possibly real-time exploration.