Weirdly some in the PHP world have tried to mimic Java's deep layering with these horrific (imho) MVC frameworks that (again imho) simply combine the worst of b

Weirdly some in the PHP world have tried to mimic Java's deep layering with these horrific (imho) MVC frameworks that (again imho) simply combine the worst of both worlds. Dynamic class loading, bootstrappers, magic (and sometimes unpredictable) file loading, enforced directory structures and so on are just the wrong approach most of the time. Sorry, I have to call you out on this. In your list above PHP is really interchangable with Python, Ruby, etc (the scripted languages). The MVC architecture you mention above perfectly describes Rails. So I have to ask, are you seriously saying that Rails is horrific? Seriously?