I could say it worked pretty well for Facebook but that would be too easy. Seriously though, I know it is very in vogue to hate PHP or at least favor X language over PHP and has been for a long time. I'm not trying to sell you on the idea that PHP is objectively the best language or even a "good" language. That is beside the point I'm trying to make which is that it literally (still) powers the majority of the internets' websites. Tons of new websites are still being made using PHP and THAT is a tough pill to swallow for many people of the opinion that it has no merit.
I don't personally enjoy programming in PHP but the way people act as if it isn't massively important strikes me as obtuse and/or petty.
I think that depends on whether an individual can get past that first 15 minutes. Me, I can have a virtual host running anything I want in a couple of minutes. You too, I'm sure. But for people who aren't pros, just getting something hosted can be a major battle. Not as major as when PHP got its start, but it's still too hard.
That's the lesson I'd love to see other ecosystems learn. PHP, by being very novice-friendly, has developed an enormous user base. How much better off would those people be if they had started with a language that was awesome not just for starting, but for the long term?
(As an aside, I'm throwing no stones here. My first programming language was BASIC, and it took me a long time to unlearn the bad habits it gave me.)
I'm talking about people who need websites in general. Not your fancy startup. Also please name me a single startup that for some reason could not flourish using PHP as opposed to some other language?
It's really more about the talent of your team than the language you choose to write your app(s) in.
It's too bad to see that your comment was voted down. It's a legitimate question, deserving of an answer.
It isn't the late 1990s any longer. Perl and PHP aren't the only viable options available for web development. We have more alternatives now than ever before.
It was one thing when a team chose to use PHP because it was all that their preferred hosting provider supported, for instance, but those days are long gone. There really is very little reason to use PHP these days, especially for new development.
I don't personally enjoy programming in PHP but the way people act as if it isn't massively important strikes me as obtuse and/or petty.