PHP

PHP is perfectly suited for small web development tasks, like to add some dynamic content to static pages without much overhead or setup.

The language is easy to learn and to handle, and can also be used to create command line scripts. (Instead of the more complicated Perl for example.)

However, PHP's history, evolving from a macro processor is still visible. While it supports OOP, the core of the language is not object oriented at all. And sadly, the developers let the major release PHP 5 pass without cleaning up the accumulated differently named functions with randomly ordered arguments.

I am thankful to PHP as well.

We upgraded our website last year, and in doing so, moved to a combination of PHP and MySQL to power the site. We've found PHP to be an easy-to-grasp language.

Its free and good quality. I use it for self-study needs. This is my first choice for open source project back-end.

PHP was my introduction to programming and I feel it is a good language for first-timers to learn. It needs understanding of HTML, which is an excellent starting point for any new programmer.

I agree with Rasmus's view that PHP is essentially a templating language as at it's most basic it generates HTML output. Unfortunately it's grown up as a spiderweb of libraries which has earned it a lot of criticism but these libraries are of good quality.

While it's loose typing and lack of order of it's functions may put off people used to .NET it's worth sticking with if you have time enough to learn your way around it.

do not know what would I do without php

As an occasional web programmer I found PHP simple to use and useful. Nowadays it seems to be surpassed by other technologies, but I still think PHP is good enough for many projects, especially thanks to a wide support on servers and the many frameworks that have been created.

Quite simply if PHP didn't exist I wouldn't have a job or maybe never have gotten into programming. Its a very easy language to use but difficult to master.

The PHP always getting better. It is very simple and have some interesting features. No doubt, PHP is the best solution for the Web development. It was created by Web for the Web. And it is evolving as fast as Web.