Having worked with PHP for what I feel I can call many years now; a few determinations have come to me. I can argue the abilities and the pitfalls of PHP on just about every aspect from both points of view. Yes, php is loose and should not be used as a application language because of this, and yes php distributions from x.x.1 to x.x.2 may break your code entirely. These are points that are absolutely correct.

On the flip side… this is true of any language. PHP to me is only as good as the developer that is writing it. To prove the point, I can write you some code in C# that would make your eyes bleed and say what the hell were you thinking. The point being, C is not the fault in the equation, but the developers ability is.

I think PHP in general is a razors edge, because it’s so loose, it’s easy to go way overboard and utilize it for procedures that it has no business doing. I also believe that it is stable and worthy enough to manage many of the application tasks asked of it today without issue, “PROVIDED YOU CODE IT CORRECTLY”.