It’s no excuse for professional developers working at “serious” companies. It is an excuse for the legions of amateur developers just trying to get something to

It’s no excuse for professional developers working at “serious” companies. It is an excuse for the legions of amateur developers just trying to get something to work. If Google and Amazon can’t find and hire enough developers imagine what that supply/demand and cost problem means for small companies. I have clients who have been trying to hire a f/t or p/t programmer for years. They can’t pay $100/hr for a simple web site. So they hire amateurs trying to get that experience needed to get a real job at a serious company. Yes, they leave a trail of crappy code full of vulnerabilities and bugs. The only way to blame that on PHP is to criticize its low bar to entry, which is a good thing for beginners.