[rjha]

I think the criticism hurled at PHP is misplaced. It serves the niche it was designed for very well. As long as you have namespaces, the include files should not be a problem for you. You can design a class loader and use that. The only thing you need to tell php.ini is an include path and then rest of the configuration is app dependent, like it is for any platform. Where do you find VM config for modules?

Also, any language that is used in real life is built on a foundation of sh*t only. The component loading with python is so bad that I have programs keeping their own version of python and IDE suggesting I create VM for my project. The situation with C is so bad that no one can solve my linker problems unless I switch the toolchain version. For a long time Javascript was a (purpose built) toy language to sprinkle pixie dust on web pages. Any sufficiently complex problem requires either deep knowledge or following convention (tribal knowledge specific to the context)