As far as I understand it, the real tragedy is that PHP as used at scale. PHP as Lerdorf intended it was the quick fix, the we-need-to-get-it-done-now fix. And then that fix grew and grew until the things that PHP fixed were eclipsed by the things in PHP that needed to be fixed--but PHP was already too big to be fixed; people were using PHP not just for fixes, but for everything, and to fix everything would break everything... And that's how we got here. Because nobody will understand your intention when your code is on the screen and the intention can only be inferred from someone who is not in the room with you.