Jeff Moore (lead developer on WACT) has a new posting called Why is PHP Popular?. Jeff covers some of the interesting points from experts to help answer this question. Thanks to Harry for the link.

It seems that most of the people Jeff is around/talks to have this idea that PHP is only for "little sites" and would never be for anything as impressive as a full ecommerce site. Well, fortunately, they're wrong - especially when PHP has some great software out there like: vBulletin, oscommerce, x-cart, pMachine, ez-Publish, gallery, phpBB and php-nuke, plus other hosting control panel favorites. It also seems that the PHP community is a bit more altruistic when it comes to their code, with most of it out there for public (Open Source) use.

He continues on, giving more reasons why those opposed to PHPs growing popularity must have blinders on. By the end, Jeff seems to have definitely proven his point - PHP is much more than many people think, and it is definite a disruptive technology.