Unfortunately, there wasn't a single point in this fellow's article that stands. Frequently the authors of stories criticizing PHP write it from the perspective

Unfortunately, there wasn't a single point in this fellow's article that stands. Frequently the authors of stories criticizing PHP write it from the perspective of a newbie first encountering a language. Maybe its just me, but I don't care about newbies. I've been writing applications with PHP for the better part of 4 years. Its a very strong language, and the parts that are "loose", like weakly typed variables and all of the predefined functions make the process of writing working code much easier. Perhaps its just me, but my definition of a good developer is one that knows what the hell they're doing. I have no problem debugging my code. Other people that read my code have no problem reading/debugging it. Its efficient, OO-style. Sure, maybe something like Ruby is "easier". One day I'll get some time and try figuring that out. Meanwhile, people keep bashing PHP. Why don't you bash Java instead? I've worked in 2 different companies that are Java shops. Its scared the crap out of me. I've yet to encounter a "java engineer" that has a freaking clue to good development practices. They almost universally insist on using tag libraries instead of writing code. Java and its adherents have been the only group of people I have ever encountered that insist on wrapping a perfectly valid markup language like HTML into A FREAKING TAG LIBRARY, THAT JUST OUTPUTS HTML?!?!?! Every bad web development practice I've ever encountered is epitomized by ever java engineer I've ever encountered.