I've never worked on PHP code in a truly professional context, but I've had one-off (very) small jobs where I've had to perform maintenance on some PHP. I have

I've never worked on PHP code in a truly professional context, but I've had one-off (very) small jobs where I've had to perform maintenance on some PHP. I have no doubt that the language and tooling has improved over the years, but I have no desire to ever work on any of it ever again. This is my honest opinion, and I'm not writing it to signal anything. There are dozens of viable production languages and life is short, so why work with one that you find very painful? If PHP works for you, that's fine, but people who don't like PHP are going to be vocal about it because they don't want to find themselves in a situation where they have to write it. You might not end up being forced to write PHP for pay these days, but it's not unrealistic to imagine that you might end up writing (for example) Java because you need a job even if you really don't like it. So you end up with language advocacy and trash talking and there's nothing wrong with any of that, it's just a way to let off steam and preserve your sanity.