> The only valid criticism is the lack of strong typing. What? It at least much stronger typing than JS. Having a separate concatenation operator already helps

> The only valid criticism is the lack of strong typing. What? It at least much stronger typing than JS. Having a separate concatenation operator already helps a lot. Or do you mean, like static typing? Here PHP has the best gradual typing story of all the dynamic backend languages. TS is super complex and needs an additional compile step. Python type declarations are a lie and can not be trusted as they are not enforced in any way by the language and different type checker will give you different results. PHP enforces types at runtime and static type checkers are fast and reliable. Dynamic productivity with static safety when needed.