[smt88]

> after having to work with it at the time of PHP3 and 4

PHP 5 was released 16 years ago and was a massive evolution of the language. The same is true for PHP 5.2, 5.3, and 7. It's safe to say that your conclusions about the language are no longer accurate.

> Is there anything that PHP is developing or adopting that can not be had at other established languages?

No. I can't think of any reason to start a new project with PHP today. All of its best features are things that have been available in other languages for years. It's also not particularly popular outside of WordPress.

[wyck]

WordPress accounts for approximately 60% of all websites, PHP accounts for approximately 79% (knows server side sites). So I would say it is particularity popular.

[NationalPark]

I'd like to know more about that 79% number. I would guess it's actually the case that PHP backends identify themselves as PHP far more than backends in other language x identify themselves.

[pests]

That doesn't make sense. If you test 100 sites and 79 come back as PHP you can't just claim that the 21 responses that came back blank somehow is a bigger number than 79.

[KerryJones]

Laravel is decently popular, has the most *s on github for a backend framework I believe (or it did at one point in time) and in a number of Fortune 100 companies.

May not be as popular as React/Flask backends, but it ain't nothing.

[tambourine_man]

Wikipedia? Facebook?

[ragnese]

They said today. Those sites were not started today. Furthermore, Facebook literally invented a new language because PHP wasn't good enough. PHP has since adopted some of the features of that language.