It was the "bad" untyped languages like PHP, Python and Ruby (Perl was too complicated for us, mere mortals) that saved the web from becoming a Microsoft monopoly, or, more likely, an oligopoly between the same MS, probably Sun, probably IBM or some such. I'm talking about most of the 2000s decade. True, the web has become sort of an oligopoly right now, but at least that was not caused by the programming languages and web frameworks that power it.
What I'm trying to say is that those languages that everyone is quick to judge right now have given us 10, maybe 15 years of extra "life", a period when most of us have "made" our careers and, well, most of our money (those who have managed to make that money, that is). We wouldn't have had (what basically are) web companies worth tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars, if the web had still meant relying on Struts or on whatever it is Microsoft was putting forward as a web framework in the mid-2000s. We wouldn't have had engineers taking home TC worth 500-600k and then complaining that Python or Ruby are not what the world needs.
What I'm trying to say is that those languages that everyone is quick to judge right now have given us 10, maybe 15 years of extra "life", a period when most of us have "made" our careers and, well, most of our money (those who have managed to make that money, that is). We wouldn't have had (what basically are) web companies worth tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars, if the web had still meant relying on Struts or on whatever it is Microsoft was putting forward as a web framework in the mid-2000s. We wouldn't have had engineers taking home TC worth 500-600k and then complaining that Python or Ruby are not what the world needs.