Although I definitely think you're correct, it's an important point none the less. A lot of us get so caught up in bashing PHP usage for large apps that we forget it's really great for small throwaway scripts and prototyping mini-apps.
DHH pointing this out reminds us that even someone super devoted/entrenched in the RoR world can see the utility of it for this kind of use case, and that the rest of us should as well.
If you can't maintain your large scale PHP projects, more blame lies with you than it does the platform.
Unfortunatley, the ease of getting PHP scripts up and running leads to the bulk of its poor implementation. Is the lesson to make setup just difficult enough to scare of the novices?
Ditto. There's a lot to be said for being available on every $8 shared hosting platform on the web. In a couple weeks I had my first database driven site up and running using the LAMP stack with no prior programming or Linux experience at all.
Thank god it is now defunct so I can't embarrass myself by linking to it.
A lower barrier to entry often means that a low standard of quality should be expected of a lot of entries :). But I can't argue that it's an easy choice for someone who wants to get started writing web applications in their garage -- $8 shared hosting is great if you're at that end of the spectrum.
PHP works fine for many people and, hey, if it works for you by all means stick with it. We should all work with the tools we're most comfortable with.
DHH is the one who led the way for much of the PHP bashing that has gone in the past few years. Still, his contributions have influenced many (PHP, django, merb, some java). Its kind of ironic that he complements PHP now, but its also kind of sad. DHH probably figures (and rightly so) that so many people take his word for gospel so he has a bit of social responsibility in admitting that PHPs many benefits have a place.
PHP apps are something that you can generally put on a $3/month shared hosting account without having to babysit and admin everything. $20/month or more plus admin overhead just to have a blagoblag you have control over is more than a lot of people are willing to invest.
I don't think anyone has ever accused PHP of not scaling down, though.
My biggest beef with the PHP community is their lack of concern for security.
How weird - just today I had to program something in PHP for the first time in years. I sometimes like to go back and use languages I haven't touched in a long time - it makes me thankful for what I have now, and the code I write in the old language is always better for the exposure to more powerful languages. Not that I'll be breaking out QuickBasic anytime soon. =)
skillset v.s. toolset. I am quite certain in the right hands php is just as capable as any other "web" language. I agree that the average php developer seems to lack any sense of security awareness.
