For some reason, people thing "grow up" means "get the feature I think I need today into the core of the language - pronto!". More features, especially more features picked from here and there without consideration of how it plays with the rest of the language, is not "growing up". PHP is adding tons of features lately, but if the author of some proposal does not get what he wants, and now, he starts preaching to anybody who listens that PHP is resistant to change and never wants to grow up. This is just untrue - PHP has grown up long ago, and doesn't really need to justify itself by seeking constant approval of everybody. There are things that are good for it, and things that are not. Things that are good are going to get in, things that are not would hopefully stay out.