And that's exactly why PHP is the better choice for those of us who distribute software to non-technical users.
The end user counts here, big time. A lot of the products out there would have precisely zero traction if they required literally hours of piddling around.
If you compare it to JVM based commercial offerings, and I'll pick Crucible as an example here, it requires:
1. Find a working JVM that matches it.
2. Piddle around with PATH settings and JAVA_HOMEW.
3. Unzip it.
4. Lots of database configuration.
5. Frig around with ACLs.on disk so it can actually write to its home directory.
6. Frigging around getting it to run as a service using a JVM service wrapper or init script that you have to write yourself.
7. Extensive backup/restore scripting.
8. Hours of dredging through Atlassian's shitty web site.
9. Fuck around with Tomcat to persuade it to work behind a proxy.
10. Set up an IIS ARR or apache AJP/HTTP proxy in front so you can serve it on a decent URL or port.
This applies to anything with stateful that requires any intevention other than copying files. That includes Python, Ruby, .Net (which is less painful I will say), Java, Scala, Clojure, common LISP. You name it.
The only things that it doesn't occur on are: ASP, PHP.
Most stuff in PHP is:
1. Unzip.
2. SFTP it up
3. Change the connection info in config.php
4. Run install.php and follow instructions.
5. Done.
People don't care about nginx vs fastcgi vs apache vs this vs that. They just want it to work and PHP gives a viable and simple solution to that.
I am doomed to fix legacy PHP projects for the rest of my life, because they are so badly written they simply cannot be upgraded to newer versions of PHP.
Yes it's popular and I've even seen designer jobs asking for php knowledge (lol), but that just tells us why it's so hated!
The new PHP might be great, but all those numbers the article has don't tell us how many of those are using newer versions of PHP. I bet 80-90% of everything written in PHP is STILL <= 5.2
Why is PHP so big? anyone can use it. Why is it so bad? When people actually learn how to program, it simply lacks everything.
I have been stuck with PHP for 4 years now and if at any point my boss lets me fix these projects, I'd run away from PHP as fast as possible...
Can you elaborate on that a little please? What does PHP not have that all the other choices offer that make such a big difference?