I've worked in C++, Java, Ruby and PHP. I'm aware of what PHP has to offer and compared to the tooling in other languages PHP is anemic at best and a fractal of bad design at worst.

You're getting very tribal and Ad-hominem in your attacks because I don't share any affection for PHP and consider the whole language to be a mistake. Since PHP 5.3 things have been moving in the right direction, but it's too little too late as a language. As for tooling everything is a half assed copy of something from the Ruby ecosystem. If you have some tips for tools comparable to Pry in Ruby or any practical REPL or and interactive debugger comparable to VisualStudio or Eclipse please by all means share, but keep your worthless snipes to yourself.

I consistently find myself frustrated when working in PHP not because I've not mastered it, but because all of the other languages I've mentioned have a better developer experiences, better tooling and consistent APIs. PHP in my experience has none of these and your response and not changed my thoughts.