At least he was aware of it but preferred to keep it in the browser side.<p>He had already started building something based on old PHP tutorials, what could be more useful if he has some small site to build:<p>A. Tell there&#x27;s a nicer and easier way to do it in PHP with well thought framework 
B. Tell server JS is so awesome (and all the cool kids are using:), you just need to start completely from the beginning<p>Introducing things gradually can help a lot and lessen the frustration. Nowadays he&#x27;s really into Vue and React but still likes to handle backends with Laravel :)<p>Also learning is one of those things that helps if the learning stuff isn&#x27;t too far away from the skills you already have. Introducing too much at the same time makes learning more frustrating - especially if you want to get something finished instead of trying to multiple ways of doing the same thing.