So in short, here's the deal. PHP is getting hated on because she is the prom queen. Rails in the new contender, and Java is last year's hot stuff. All three are valuable languages that provide many an over-paid programmer with the tools needed to wow their co-workers. Pick your weapon and go to town.
PHP has arrived. Tim Bray posted on PHP and it's got the web all hot and heavy. I know that plenty of people like to take these opportunities to flex their blog muscles and tell off all the other languages, proclaim their programming expertise and explain why all those using certain languages are dumb as hell. Greg Beaver has already done a good job of pointing out why this is a waste of time so I wont repeat what he said.
He's basically of the same concensus that others stated - it's not about how good one language is overall, it's about what works for you in the situation you're in. It's almost impossible to find a langauge out there that's a perfect fit fo everything.
