I’ll start this of by saying I enjoy PHP, for no particular reason, but a few years into the past I looked at some tutorials, and generaly started working with it, having fun and money with it, and it (the last IT in this sentence, I hope 
) grew on me. and I don’t think it’s perfection encarnated (not close), but I don’t think it’s (damn) inferiour to other interpreted programming languages, it’s just .. different. Also, my opinion is, most of the time, a humble one, when it’s not … I’ll put up a big red sign 
.So, let’s call this a disclamer, and move on with things 
During my EuroOscon, I was witness to two of the biggest differences between Perl and PHP, the sense of community and the general awe factor (symbolized in Perl-God Larry Wall and the amazing Damian Conway) that Perl has … and PHP clearly doesn’t. Perl members exude pride in it, Larry’s State of the Onion talk draw crowds, and Damian is just bloody brilliant . The PHP crowd however, is far more shy, people gave me that “oh dear” look when I said I was a PHP user ,the man who invented it, Rasmus Lerdorf, while being apparently open, strikes you as someone who works best alone, unlike Larry Wall, who I caught attending and having a good time in a good deal of presentations, and as for the majority (ok, all) of the PHP presentations they lacked … well .. a lot of things, they weren’t very interesting to tell you the truth.
So what’s the point of all of this? Well, the biggest point is that PHP has a bit of distance to go, especially on the human point of view, at least at a “user” level, exacly the level where most of us lie . At a depper (developer) level, I believe things are better, since the language is alive and kicking, so is there a problem that needs fixing? Well, probably not, but things could improve , for one, altough I do appreciate the effort that PHP (ok, zend has been doing in bringing PHP to the Enterprise (with Oracle, for instance) but what about grass-roots? Well, I googled it and there are some organized attempts, here and there, but in comparison, this is just a whole different game (take Portuguese representation for one) .
So what’s there to do? Well, we’re not saving the world or anything, but I’ve been entertaning the notion that change starts small, and o a very small level, I’ve been entertaining the thought that MAYBE some of you feel the same, and that we could actually do something about it . Think I’m crazy or just plain blind? Say so on the comment box , I dare you .
