PHP's sigils are superfluous. Perl (from which PHP derives their use) utilizes sigils with respect to typing in order to denote scalar variables ($), arrays (@)

PHP's sigils are superfluous. Perl (from which PHP derives their use) utilizes sigils with respect to typing in order to denote scalar variables ($), arrays (@) and hashes (%). What does PHP use the $ sigil for? Everything but references (&). Why? Because. PHP's standard library is extremely disorganized. What's the function to put a string into hexadecimal? bin2hex. What's the function to put a string into base64? base64_encode. How do you turn a base64 string back into a "binary" string? base64_decode. How do you turn a hexadecimal string back into a "binary" string? Oh wait... an explicit function doesn't exist for that. Not to mention the various inconsistent ways in which functions are named: afnctn(), afunction(), a_function(), et cetera ad nauseum. Many functions also have an inconsistent order of parameters. PHP doesn't support integral values larger than that of a signed 32 bit integer. Even better, when you overflow an int, you get a float back! Did you know pack() and unpack() support arguments for the unsigned ints that PHP doesn't support? Genius! Last I checked, PHP didn't use lexical scoping. Do you know how downright stupid and annoying that is? PHP's thread support sucks. Period. According to Cal Henderson at Flickr, PHP "leaks memory like a sieve." (http://www.afup.org/IMG/pdf/flickr_php.pdf http://www.afup.org/IMG/pdf/flickr_php.pdf) (of course this is an implementation issue) The downright stupidity of some of the PHP users just baffles me at times. One look on the PHP manual (Especially at any of the pages about the cryptographic functions, such as md5() and sha1() ) is enough to make any seasoned programmer's blood pressure skyrocket. Cheers.