I started coding 50 years ago with assembly and late in 1975, the "C" language from a friend at Bell Labs. Learning C opened a big door for possibilities. It wasn''t all that easy to learn since the only book available was from Kernighan and Ritchie call "The C Programming Language".
In 1992 I learned C++. Then in 2005 I started programming for the web using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the front end and php in the backend.
So why php? Because it was as close the the C language as I could get. Most of the syntax was the same. Most of the function names were the same. And, the syntax structure was basically the same as C.
I looked at Java. But at the time it was slow and unreliable. The biggest drawback I had with Java was that it wanted you to create all the user interface using it''s built in elements and I want more freedom.
I also look at classic ASP which I hated. I mean hated! It''s syntax and structure was like speaking a completely different language. Years later I would spend time converting some ASP pages to php. It''s not fun at all.
The freedom to do whatever I wanted with C is another aspect that drew me to php. C and php didn''t box me in.
php is a fairly low level language. Like with C, I can do bit manipulate and comparisons, I can talk directly to databases, and I''m free do design it any way I want.
As the years have gone on, php has continuously gotten more secure,, faster, and more powerful. When I learned it, it didn''t have classes nor polymorphism. Now it does. There is literally nothing I can''t do using php. It doesn''t have the high level functionality of Python or Java, but I''m not limited.
Some 50 years after I started coding, I''m still using it. Sayzio.com and Ztalk.sayzio.com both use php for the backend and I see not reason to change that.