No one is disputing that you can hammer a nail with a brick. Most of the criticisms around PHP revolve around the idea that it's better idea to use a hammer (with one claw side, and one hammer side)
Likewise, when you have a real problem that isn't needs to run on a $5 shared host, or written for $4/hour in China PHP is rarely a good choice unless you happen to already know it.
If I needed to solve either of the above two problems I'd choose PHP. I write a lot of PHP (mainly wordpress sites) and it's certainly workable, it's just annoying once you've used languages like C#, Ruby, F#, Scala, Clojure, or Python.
None of the problems with PHP are unmanageable it's like driving an old diesel car, you just remember to plug it in the night before if it's going to be less than 40 degrees.
Modern shared hosting can actually handle long-running processes and complex frameworks that used to require a VPS. I don't have broad experience with it, but I did just deploy a client's site to webfaction.com, which supports Django, Rails, arbitrary long-running processes, JVMs, custom Apache configurations etc.... Pricing can be as low as $5.50/month there, and there are probably even cheaper services for those who shop around.
you just remember to plug it in the night before if it's going to be less than 40 degrees
People in warm climates who have never seen electric engine heaters might not understand this.
Good point on the block heaters, I guess that's a cultural reference most likely to be picked up by Canadians.
It's especially bad for diesels as when they age even with new glow plugs it isn't enough heat to make the diesel ignite with out waiting 5 to 10 minutes if it isn't a nice summer day.
Yeah I've run a couple rails apps on dreamhost, it's becoming more common but you know for sure that PHP is going to be installed.
Likewise, when you have a real problem that isn't needs to run on a $5 shared host, or written for $4/hour in China PHP is rarely a good choice unless you happen to already know it.
If I needed to solve either of the above two problems I'd choose PHP. I write a lot of PHP (mainly wordpress sites) and it's certainly workable, it's just annoying once you've used languages like C#, Ruby, F#, Scala, Clojure, or Python.
None of the problems with PHP are unmanageable it's like driving an old diesel car, you just remember to plug it in the night before if it's going to be less than 40 degrees.