It has been a long time since I have had to deal with Other People's PHP and I have never had to with my own. Mostly, I have had to at least glance over student projects that had security issues I could drive a bus through, honking and dragging a bunch of rusty bikes.
In terms of language design, I couldn't speak to it. I've never designed a language and they are intensely personal things. However, I have the vague sense that the culture of PHP (installed by default, easy to get working) created many fire-and-forget projects done to scratch an immediate itch with no sense for maintenance. It works? Ship it.
You can write obfuscated code in any language, but some languages have a culture which encourages it, such as Perl. Similarly, I think many perceptions of PHP arose from a "make it work, now, anything else is someone else's problem later" mindset I saw from the people who were developing in it.
In terms of language design, I couldn't speak to it. I've never designed a language and they are intensely personal things. However, I have the vague sense that the culture of PHP (installed by default, easy to get working) created many fire-and-forget projects done to scratch an immediate itch with no sense for maintenance. It works? Ship it.
You can write obfuscated code in any language, but some languages have a culture which encourages it, such as Perl. Similarly, I think many perceptions of PHP arose from a "make it work, now, anything else is someone else's problem later" mindset I saw from the people who were developing in it.
I would be interested in other perspectives.