I would hardly call this 'the norm', may as well say the all C software inevitably segfaults and is thus unreliable since that happens at least once to everyone

I would hardly call this 'the norm', may as well say the all C software inevitably segfaults and is thus unreliable since that happens at least once to everyone who's ever learnt the language. PHP newbies just have the unfortunate side effect of being a bit more exposed to the 'outside elements' while learning. And if your prior employment recruited based on connections rather than competence that speaks to a management issue that couldn't possibly be solved by switching languages. (this isn't really to single out your comment meaty, could be attached to anyone else in this thread)