I would argue that MySQL became popular because it was free, not because it was particularly better technology. We were, and still are, in that space (database engines), and experienced it all first-hand. It's really, really hard to compete with free, especially when you're talking about adoption rates and customer numbers with potential customers.
To make that argument it's necessary to compare against other free DBMS implementations. MySQL and MongoDB lead the pack against other FOSS products and have for quite some time. (That's quite different from saying that they are well-suited for a particular purpose, which is a different matter entirely.)
Thanks for that insight. I hadn’t considered the connection mechanics with MySQL as a usability point for PHP.
I often cite the traceability of early PHP and it’s one-file-per-url policy as usability features. Many of these features have been lost in modern PHP. A similar thing has happened with JS. There seems to be an opportunity for a back-to-the-roots platform that brings these things back.
Before I discovered Elixir, I actually had every intention of building something along those lines.
I was going to have an index.php that was only used in dev for routing, but when you wanted to go to production it would generate paths that you'd load into nginx...which when directly to each individual .php file behind the scenes.
