But it makes reflection so easy. I've never known a "modern" language to have such simple reflection without a bunch of boilerplate (Java, C#, Python gets close, Scala)... People harp on PHP a ton, but it's really darn powerful if used correctly. The trick is finding people who know how to use it correctly.

Oof, I'm not a PHP coder and I didn't know it had this feature before reading these comments but I definitely do not envy it in the languages I use. The potential for abuse is immense, this is one step removed from generating code at runtime by concatenating strings and calling eval() on them.

I'm sure there are situations where this feature can be really valuable (and I do sometimes use getattr/setattr in python, which is somewhat similar) but I think the developers should really think hard and make an educated decision about when to use it. As such having it require a bit of boilerplate is a feature more than a bug IMO. I definitely wouldn't want to have to maintain code written by someone who abuses these types of indirections everywhere.

I can definitely imagine a novice coder using these "variable variables" in lieu of a proper hash table or dictionary object for instance.

I mean it suffices to read some of the comments to the article posted above to find a bunch of people posting code snippets which, IMO, are a very poor way of implementing what they want. For instance:

    $price_for_monday = 10;
    $price_for_tuesday = 20;
    $price_for_wednesday = 30;

    $today = 'tuesday';

    $price_for_today = ${ 'price_for_' . $today};
    echo $price_for_today; // will return 20

or even:

    class foo {
      function bar() {
        $bar1 = "var1";
        $bar2 = "var2";
        $this->{$bar1}= "this ";
        $this->{$bar2} = "works";
      }
    }

    $test = new foo;
    $test->bar();
    echo $test->var1 . $test->var2;

I'd probably quit if I had to maintain code written like that. Having boilerplate would at least make it obvious that something unusual is going on with these variables and make the intent clear while reading the code.

Thats because your use case isn't real. In js, its usually used to generate select option (example in react):

    for(let optValue of Object.keys(options)){
      optDom.push(
        <option key={optValue} value={optValue}>{options[optValue]}</option>
      )
    }

Of course array also works, but with json object, it guarantee that the value will be distinct and you don't need specific array object type.

And to add to that. Once reflection becomes a "tool in your toolbox" so many problems can be solved easily with it in other languages. Then you bash your head against poor documentation and slow execution (looking at you Scala).