When I write Javascript I don't feel like I need an IDE, but when I write PHP I need a good IDE for imports, getters and setters, stringly-typed frameworks like symfony, "doctrine" annotations. Java at least has some decent free IDEs that can generate the boilerplate that are by far superior to PHPStorm.
> When I write Javascript I don't feel like I need an IDE
Isn't it more like that with Javascript an IDE can't help you much anyway.
I agree completely. And to expand on that, TypeScript with an IDE is a joy to work with in comparison.
They looked at the state of Java OOP at the time and just dumped that in PHP without considering the rather large differences between those languages.
At the time, Java was the popular language and drove a lot of the thought behind language design. Go, Swift and others were not on the stage at the time.