> A big part of this issue is that the barrier to entry in PHP is so damn low, almost everyone can start hacking wordpress templates. For many people, PHP is th

> A big part of this issue is that the barrier to entry in PHP is so damn low, almost everyone can start hacking wordpress templates. For many people, PHP is the first programming language they try without formal education. This really hits the nail on the head. A lot of the criticism of PHP comes from people who have never worked with a good PHP codebase and have only seen some of the many examples of awful PHP code out there. A well written PHP codebase is really nice to work with. > The problem I have with PHP has nothing to do with the language, it’s its reputation. I can’t count the times I’ve started a conversation with a programmer who upon finding out I primarily do PHP got awkward with me. I've experienced this many times as well. I think the previous point is really the root cause of this. People have a lot of misinformed ideas about PHP due to the sheer amount of really low quality PHP code and "developers" (i.e. people with no experience just trying to get shit done).