It's not a surprise at all.
Firstly, PHP has always been around, WordPress based websites still have like 1/3 share of all existing websites.
Secondly, in the recent years it got a very mature language, got loads of improvements and performance optimizations. With PHP 8 being planned to be released by the end of this year, it will be another major step forward.
Thirdly, Laravel, Symfony and other open source stuff are awesome.
I think if PHP does a major comeback as a decent platform for development and somehow gets rid of the undeserved reputation, those PHP devs who stayed with PHP and didn't switch to RoR, Django, Node or other platforms will be winners, including me :)
Firstly, PHP has always been around, WordPress based websites still have like 1/3 share of all existing websites.
Secondly, in the recent years it got a very mature language, got loads of improvements and performance optimizations. With PHP 8 being planned to be released by the end of this year, it will be another major step forward.
Thirdly, Laravel, Symfony and other open source stuff are awesome.
I think if PHP does a major comeback as a decent platform for development and somehow gets rid of the undeserved reputation, those PHP devs who stayed with PHP and didn't switch to RoR, Django, Node or other platforms will be winners, including me :)