Personally, one of the reasons I think PHP will continue to do well is the accessibility which is helped with the basic documentation. Can't remember how something works? php.net/foo. http://php.net/strpos - you get the 'official' docs, along with wiki-ish input from the community about gotchas, workarounds, extra tips, etc. Makes a big difference to many people compared to http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Strin..., for example.