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PHP is a lot more simple to get into, it has much less quirks you need to find your way around during the learning phase. For a beginner node is a bad choice imo. Even plain JS is. Too much potential for frustration.
Execution speed also isn't everything. You'll have a small script set up and running with php a lot faster than with node. For most of my scripts I don't care if they're executed in 0.01ms or 0.1ms. And of course speed depends a lot on your code and setup. Again, not a reason to recommend it to beginners.
When you want to learn programming, don't restrict yourself to the "coolest" language at that point. Start with something easy, and gradually learn your ways around the other ones. You don't become a good programmer in a couple of months anyway, and certainly not when you're not open to learn handling different tools.
I've looked into NodeJS and there is some confusion as to whether or not it is better than PHP. PHP itself has been around for quite some time and with the latest version they appear to have dealt with a lot of what was perceived to be wrong with the language. NodeJS on the other hand, isn't well built for the same task necessarily since Javascript was never designed to be a server-side language. Aside from that, the nature of a callback-dependent language makes the logic difficult for even seasoned programmers to get their heads around if you're doing things that are heavily intensive. Furthermore, NodeJs's libraries are not very stable at this point yet, it would seem. Which is not to say that there is no value in it, it is a very slick language. But I wonder if it will be able to fill the same niche as PHP does in the near-medium term. We'll see I guess.
Did you?
PHP is a lot more simple to get into, it has much less quirks you need to find your way around during the learning phase. For a beginner node is a bad choice imo. Even plain JS is. Too much potential for frustration.
Execution speed also isn't everything. You'll have a small script set up and running with php a lot faster than with node. For most of my scripts I don't care if they're executed in 0.01ms or 0.1ms. And of course speed depends a lot on your code and setup. Again, not a reason to recommend it to beginners.
When you want to learn programming, don't restrict yourself to the "coolest" language at that point. Start with something easy, and gradually learn your ways around the other ones. You don't become a good programmer in a couple of months anyway, and certainly not when you're not open to learn handling different tools.
Never tried nodejs much myself, but it looks pretty cool. :-)
I've looked into NodeJS and there is some confusion as to whether or not it is better than PHP. PHP itself has been around for quite some time and with the latest version they appear to have dealt with a lot of what was perceived to be wrong with the language. NodeJS on the other hand, isn't well built for the same task necessarily since Javascript was never designed to be a server-side language. Aside from that, the nature of a callback-dependent language makes the logic difficult for even seasoned programmers to get their heads around if you're doing things that are heavily intensive. Furthermore, NodeJs's libraries are not very stable at this point yet, it would seem. Which is not to say that there is no value in it, it is a very slick language. But I wonder if it will be able to fill the same niche as PHP does in the near-medium term. We'll see I guess.