[tzaman]

I'd say one of PHP's biggest flaws is that it's just too easy to get started. One might argue that's not a flaw, but it is - it allows junior developers to dig right into the code without knowing the basics of how web works, in turn producing extreme technical debt and waste years on bad practices.

I've been there too, and I must say I agree with Jeff on this matter - if I was forced to use Ruby instead of PHP when starting my career, I'd be a better developer today. But I'm catching up :)