Anyone who has used PHP for a while knows that it has its ugly parts. Recently I've seen a whole swathe of PHP-bashing articles and that would fine if they were they are making a valid point, but some of it has just been - as I tweeted recently - "absolute drivel".

He directly refutes some of the points made in that article, points out a newer post from the same author (which misses some points as well) and finishes it off with a look at why he "still" uses PHP versus something like Closure or NodeJS for his development.

Despite known flaws and imperfections I continue to use PHP as my primary language because during all the time I spend worrying about which technology is the neatest, coolest or shiniest I could have built a new application to sell or finished another client site.

Be sure to check out the comments for some other thoughts about the language (and Phil's responses).

Unless you are in the business of competing with Zend, what do you care if an article looks a little bit like corporate PR speak on Zend's behalf. They've done a lot for the language, and while some of the PR in years past was clearly out of line (the timeline of PHP and "Creators" schtick comes to mind), that policy has been changed and they are working on improving community relations.

He cites another blog entry (a response to this) from Edin as something that could cause a problem in the community, pushing a more anti-Zend slant on the whole PHP6 situation.