> nowadays the language is unrecognisable from the state it was in when it gained the bad reputation
I used it then (3.x, 4.x) and I recognize many of the terrible warts are still front and center.
PHP isn’t bad because it’s not new and shiny, it’s bad because it does opaque and wrong things and demands a user of the language know all sorts of inconsistent PHP-specific nonsense that does not benefit the language authors, the language users, or serve the solving of the problem of the language user. It’s not prejudice or signaling, it’s objectively deficient in ways that haven’t been acceptable in decades.
I used it then (3.x, 4.x) and I recognize many of the terrible warts are still front and center.
PHP isn’t bad because it’s not new and shiny, it’s bad because it does opaque and wrong things and demands a user of the language know all sorts of inconsistent PHP-specific nonsense that does not benefit the language authors, the language users, or serve the solving of the problem of the language user. It’s not prejudice or signaling, it’s objectively deficient in ways that haven’t been acceptable in decades.