[leke]

Ruby and RoR is cool and all, but as these web apps got more and more complex, the need for static types became too important. What gave PHP it's edge was types and is the reason I'm still using it after nearly 20 years. PHP seems to implement those important things just in time. OOP, better OOP, types, speed boost, and next probably concurrency.

[gls2ro]

Is is the need for static types or the need for better testing that is not focused on coverage of line of code?

Because if the domain logic is getting more complex then more types will not catch the bugs unless you are willing for codify business rules within types so then you have to test the types.