You know, I understand a certain amount of PHP bashing. It's far from the most sane language that I have ever used and parts of the syntax are flat out painful.

You know, I understand a certain amount of PHP bashing. It's far from the most sane language that I have ever used and parts of the syntax are flat out painful. That said though, the version of PHP you are talking about was written 23 years ago. The language has changed a tremendous amount over 23 years. The state of the tool 23 years ago would be a very poor reason to choose or avoid it today. Hell, Java is roughly the same age as PHP. Nobody in their right mind would dream of using that first version of Java today. It isn't that the tool itself is bad. Rather, the tool has improved dramatically over the last two decades.