The biggest problem with PHP isn't anything built into the language itself, but rather the culture of mediocrity/naivety surrounding it. As at least one other

The biggest problem with PHP isn't anything built into the language itself, but rather the culture of mediocrity/naivety surrounding it. As at least one other commenter has said, there are disciplined and skilled PHP programmers. If only they were the majority! Sadly, for the PHP ecosystem, a few good apples don't unspoil the bunch. Here are a few ways PHP's bad culture manifests itself. 1. Cargo culting The web is filled with questionable recipes for doing this or that in PHP. I've observed a strong tendency of PHP programmers to approach every possible addition of functionality like this: 1) Google search; 2) find source code that supposedly does what's needed; 3) paste that source code in without understanding it or thoughtfully evaluating its appropriateness. I'm all for learning by reading other people's code. I'm even OK with pasting code when you understand it fully. But cargo culting is bad, and it seems rampant in the PHP world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming 2. Lack of architecture PHP applications often lack a coherent architecture. It's a typical mistake of new programmers--one that I made many times--to think just enough about architecture to accomplish the task immediately at hand. Naturally, this comes back to bite you when you want to extend your code's capabilities. I see this all the time in PHP applications. Consider Wordpress. Its API is a random, ad-hoc mess of global functions. Things that should logically be exposed as objects aren't (like posts, for example). The API for retrieving content is different depending on whether you're in the mysterious "Loop" or not. And so on. A more detailed analysis of the lack of architecture in Wordpress can be found here: http://www.phpvs.net/2009/12/08/an-exercise-in-wordpress-integration-or-why-wordpress-sucks/ http://www.phpvs.net/2009/12/08/an-exercise-in-wordpress-int... 3. Frankenstein coding Similar to cargo culting, Frankenstein coding is when you cobble together an application from a bunch of off-the-shelf plugins or modules. This is a common practice in the Drupal world specifically, but it applies to a greater or lesser extent in much of the PHP ecosystem. There are two major problems with this approach. First, the chunks of functionality you download are not likely to match your needs perfectly, so you're forced to make due with software that's almost what you want. Second, the code quality of these modules is often abysmal, and that means security flaws, among other problems. Sadly, many PHP developers seem perfectly content with this. Even worse, they do this for clients, who get a semi-functional end product at bargain basement prices. That practice gives me a cheap, sleezy vibe, and it doesn't help my impression of the overall PHP ecosystem. The language itself is so-so in my opinion--not good enough to be my go-to language, but not so terrible I'd refuse to work with it. But somehow, probably due to the language's accessibility, the PHP ecosystem seems to have been swamped by coders who know just enough to get by. And that's my real problem with PHP.