PHP is just an interpreted C and standard libs all rolled into one. The first version was literally a set of macro's. PHP has baggage that other languages don't because of its immediate and rapid super popularity.
If you look behind each one of the features you will find that they aren't 'design decisions' but rather a consequence of circumstance.
Most of what is being discussed in this post doesn't really matter because:
a) most PHP developers will never touch some of the smaller nuances
b) newer versions of PHP are changing things (and people still keep using older version. there was an entire holdout movement with version 4). this entire post could have been pulled from the PHP issue tracker.
c) super duper huge websites and web applications are being built with PHP
I don't consider myself a PHP developer, but the argument about it being useless in spite of all the evidence is just ridiculous.
If you look behind each one of the features you will find that they aren't 'design decisions' but rather a consequence of circumstance.
Most of what is being discussed in this post doesn't really matter because:
a) most PHP developers will never touch some of the smaller nuances
b) newer versions of PHP are changing things (and people still keep using older version. there was an entire holdout movement with version 4). this entire post could have been pulled from the PHP issue tracker.
c) super duper huge websites and web applications are being built with PHP
I don't consider myself a PHP developer, but the argument about it being useless in spite of all the evidence is just ridiculous.