[ericclemmons]

Time to beat this dead horse again!

PHP as a language isn't great, since it has been around the block in a volatile environment (the web) and shows lack of foresight in language design.

However, PHP is experiencing a renascence with modular components, frameworks and tools utilizing established design patterns, and an overall boost in contribution and collaboration in the open-source community, in large part thanks to Github.

PHP is not dead, and vibrant communities around Symfony and Doctrine are pushing it forward considerably.

In my opinion, large applications can and have been built primarily on PHP while leveraging other languages and tools for their strengths.

[mseebach]

A lot of good people are working on a lot of PHP that isn't going away, and obviously they are going to improve tooling and the language itself. There is a renaissance in terms of making PHP development sane and thus not something good people run away screaming from - a bit like Java.

But the benefits of starting a new project in PHP are few: All of the original benefits (mainly low barrier to entry) are eradicated, and that leaves PHP to compete directly, as a full development environment, not as the only easy way to get code on the web, with a myriad of other languages that can, almost objectively, be thought of as better. Again, a bit like Java.

[DanielN]

Very well put. I'm not a huge fan of php, but find this possibility of resurgence (particularly because I use the language for my day job) very interesting.