> I don't really understand the reasons for using PHP outside of that people are already familiar with it and like working with it or want to find jobs in that

> I don't really understand the reasons for using PHP outside of that people are already familiar with it and like working with it or want to find jobs in that area. I look at it this way sometimes: there are the interpreted languages, the VM-based languages and then systems languages. PHP is a good option in the "interpreted" languages category, if your problem domain is web-based, as it includes a lot of built in functionality for web-based problems. It's also open-source, reasonably performant, has an improved type system, has a C-like syntax and enjoys features inherent to a scripting language e.g. fast startup time, so would be a good option for lambdas. Finally, one of the features that has been unreasonably good about PHP is the shared-nothing request model, which makes running a website on PHP a stable experience, in an imperfect world of weird state issues and libraries that might sometimes have a bug that leaks memory. There are also other options in the "interpreted" category which I would fully expect people to also look into, however that's not to say PHP isn't a good contender for this space, given learning time is a limited resource. However I would expect people to know a VM-based language and a systems-based language (or at least a bit of one) in addition.