We love PHP because it made websites for small business do a lot of the things that were at one time only available to very large corporations with deep pockets. PHP packs a lot of value for our typical small business owner looking to grow an established business.
PHP is interesting because nobody really saw it coming in the early days. Like a lot of open source software, PHP was developed because someone had a specific need and later released it to the open source community so it could be improved upon. Because PHP was open source it grew organically instead of being hyped up as the "latest & greatest" technology offered by some big software company that you must have no matter the cost, there have been very few regrets by the people who adopted it. We at ADHD Media loved PHP from day one, but we felt like somewhere along the way of it's 20 year history we woke up and PHP was king of the internet programming languages without trying
For most websites PHP is a technology that offers a good balance of features and performance. As with Ford versus Chevy, there are people who will argue that such and such is so much better, but at the end of the day PHP ends up getting the job done. You may not win a drag race with it, but it will haul the groceries, kids, & that large awkward item you picked up at home depot, yet be comfortable and pleasant to drive.
