Well done.

> Also the language that allows people to be up and running in seconds (with or without AI).

People getting up and running without any opportunity to be taught about security concerns (even those as simple as the risks of inadequate input verification), especially considering the infamous inconsistency in PHP's APIs which can lead to significant foot-guns, is both a blessing and a curse… Essentially a pre-cursor to some of the crap that is starting to be published now via vibe-coding with little understanding.

The bottom half.

;)

Works great, but, like any tool, usage matters.

People who use tools badly, get bad results.

I've always found the "Fishtank Graph" to be relevant: https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/programmin...

Pretty much all of you missed the larger point. PHP was what allowed me to not work in retail forever, buy a forever house, never have to worry about losing my job (this may change in the future with AI) or being at risk for redundancy, having chosen to only work for small, "normal" well run profitable businesses.

Unless you're building a hyper scale product, it does the job perfectly. PHP itself is not a security issue; using it poorly is, and any language can be used poorly. PHP is still perfectly suitable for web dev, especially in 2026.

That isn't the fault of the language of course, but a valid reason for some of the “ick” reaction some get when it is mentioned.