[robertlagrant]

> the closest someone will probably give as an explanation is a massive rambling blog post written years ago

That blog post is long, but definitely not rambling, and unlike the above quote, is done in good faith. PHP night have improved, but if it has it will likely have used that blog post as a reference.

[agubelu]

For context, this is the blog post in question:

https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

[wwweston]

Ugh, that article. It took a few good points that represented real practical annoyances for working with the language, it added a monumental helping of perfectly dense refusal to consider merits that made PHP successful, and then when combined with investments programmers had made in other languages and cultural momentum took on an oversized undeserved life of its own.