> But if things have got better, then perhaps the criticism is no longer valid?
Part of that is due to the share amount of code out there doing things bad ways that were almost encouraged years ago, and tutorials still out there teaching people to do things the old less good ways.
Of course a lot of it is people who haven't touched the language for many years (such as myself) who are at this point a lot less informed than they think they are!
Another issue is that the new frameworks seem to get the positive news, not the core. The language use to describe PHP related libs/frameworks is different in my experience which makes a perception difference: PHP frameworks are often referred to as "making PHP behave" or "removing the cruft from your workflow" where frameworks for other platforms would be described as "helping you make the most of <platform>" and "increasing your efficiency".
Part of that is due to the share amount of code out there doing things bad ways that were almost encouraged years ago, and tutorials still out there teaching people to do things the old less good ways.
Of course a lot of it is people who haven't touched the language for many years (such as myself) who are at this point a lot less informed than they think they are!
Another issue is that the new frameworks seem to get the positive news, not the core. The language use to describe PHP related libs/frameworks is different in my experience which makes a perception difference: PHP frameworks are often referred to as "making PHP behave" or "removing the cruft from your workflow" where frameworks for other platforms would be described as "helping you make the most of <platform>" and "increasing your efficiency".