I've felt for quite some time that most of the anti-PHP sentiment is an effort of other developers to justify the language they've selected to focus on. "Yeah, I'm doing Javascript and Node.js and yeah it's got it's sharp edges, but at least it's not PHP!"

The problem is, if the negativity continues, the next step is that business WONT want PHP in their ecosystem... And not because it can't get the job done for them, but just because "ew PHP. I heard that was bad."

Would you be surprised if I told you that pro-PHP sentiment looks exactly like that as well?

When was the last time we saw a "PHP is Great!" article make it to the front page of HN? Most of the time, PHP developers are on their heels because it seems others are constantly on the offense. I've not figured out what value this constant aggression provides to these developers making the arguments. My only conclusion is that they're just trying to make themselves seem more important. To that note, the pro-PHP camp becomes more of a "non-anti-PHP." :)

Version control, documentation, checking their work before committing and sending to QA, documentation, and learning how little they actual know about development on a real timescale >> which language they use. I'd rather start out in a well run IT shop that uses PHP than a quirky single dev small shop (or god-forbid an academic ivory tower of babel) with the most cutting edge startup blessed tool set.