Conclusion
I maintain that of all the dynamically-typed (or freedom) languages PHP has the most-approachable syntax especially for developers coming from the typical statically-typed languages. I guess that this plays a huge part in PHP’s popularity right now. Also, the adoption of PHP by Oracle and the availability of many polished and sophisticated applications are important. There, at least from my point of view, seem to be far more content management systems and other tools, written in PHP, than in Python or Ruby. Especially some of the most popular tools in the developer community are written in PHP: PhpPgAdmin and PhpMyAdmin.
That said, I am a huge advocate for choosing “the right tool for the job” and that, of course, means that you might want to choose PHP under the right circumstances. I’ll give you a few examples:
1. You have found the ideal framework or base for your software and it’s written in PHP
This website runs on WordPress. It has by far the best UI of any weblogging application. It also means that I have to navigate around all the problems I mentioned in this document. My guess is that in the long run that will take more time than not using a PHP based weblogging application, but for now, I just wait for PyBloxsom to catch up.
2. You already have a huge investment in PHP technology
3. Your time-constraints do not allow you to learn something else
For me, PHP is now an unacceptable solution to all but the simplest problems.