I thought this for a long time as well. I always enjoyed ragging on PHP but wondered if it was just because I wasn't familiar with it.

A few months ago, I got the opportunity to do a little PHP programming. I was wrong. I didn't have a bad impression of PHP simply out of ignorance. In fact, my opinion of the language is now much lower than before. I honestly can't conceive how anyone could legitimately defend it for anything other than its ubiquity.