@mhoye You're not wrong. And I think it's parallel to LLM usage in the way it lets people do things that are inaccessible to them in any other way.

I found Scott Hanselman's concept of "dark matter developers" related. And PHP fits this idea of a well-known, easy-to-use language that can get stuff done.

The real issue is that PHP isn't "excellent." It's just easy and ubiquitous. In fact, someone who learns it first is in for an uphill climb to learn anything else because of all its eccentricities.

It's easy to use and gets stuff done, but it's also full of footguns for the uninitiated. And it's most popular among the uninitiated.