Originally Posted by Varius

Every language has great programmers just as they have poor programmers.

PHP is one of the more popular languages, with an easy learning curve, thus its propensity to have more of the "poor" variety. That doesn't make PHP a poor language, though.

In any case, one should always select the best tool for the job at hand.

For example, while I could write the same code in PHP and Python for a certain application, Python may execute faster or have pre-built modules PHP doesn't, saving time and effort. On the other hand, for a simple web application, Python is probably more time-consuming to develop in and not show any practical benefits.