PHP is still definitely a beginner-friendly language that is still very easy to get started with. Setup is as trivial as it always has been, copy a .php file onto a server and you’re good to go. No complicated frameworks or “deployment process” needed if you don’t want them (and most people don’t need them).

The difference between it and Java is you’re not forced into the ClassObjectGetterSetterPropertyHookFactoryBean paradigm with PHP. You can continue to write concise, simple, elegant scripts that read from top to bottom and serve one page and serve it well. You don’t have to use any of these crazy newfangled features - I, for one, will be using none of them, and will be sticking to my if-else blocks and nested for loops that will be easy to read and grok when I (or someone else!) come back to the code two months down the line.