PHP used to actually have a performance penalty for splitting things up into modules and using object oriented design, because it meant loading and parsing more

PHP used to actually have a performance penalty for splitting things up into modules and using object oriented design, because it meant loading and parsing more files on each request. I was trying to do that on my first big PHP project, and got called out. The architect said "your code is too good, PHP is for writing crap". If you are going to write good code, you should do it in another language. Symfony framework is a great example of a PHP framework written by Java programmers. All the same verbosity as Java, but without the benefits of Java.