Vimeo: It’s not legacy code – it’s PHP (opens in new tab)

The adage that PHP is the VB6 of web programming languages is apt in that it is easy for non-programmers to quickly hack together something as a proof of concept. Going from zero to proof of concept is awesome but non-programmers don't know what they don't know about design patterns.... and when "real programmers" were brought in to spruce up the hacked success they do what a lot of us do: lobby for a rewrite. It's awesome to see solid work going into analysis and refactoring tools for PHP: it's the language that runs everywhere at the lowest cost (eg: budget web hosts) so it's ideal for volunteer projects and non-funded ideas. Kudos to Vimeo for helping to make PHP great again!

"PHP doesn’t have to be terrible"

I agree. Many of the usual complaints about PHP stem from the old versions, which are indeed far from perfect. I'm not going to tell anyone it's better than something else, but saying it's bad because it used to be bad or that a lot of people write awful code in it is disingenuous. I've seen more bad code than good and in all possible languages.