PHP actually has great tooling now (PhpStorm + Xdebug). The standard library is also fantastic in terms of its breath -- almost everything is already baked into PHP. It&#x27;s really inconsistent, though, which could be enough reason for someone to call it &quot;poor&quot;.<p>The syntax... I dunno. I think that&#x27;s strongly a matter of personal preference. I just wanted to point out that PHP can be less painful than people realize (although still painful).<p>Edit: also be sure to look into Airbrake for logging exception in production. I find it to be pretty indispensable.