I cannot speak to the solution to the alleged problem of PHP that you and many other programmers, when speaking at your highest levels of snootiness and condescension, have lambasted innumerable times, beyond the point of tedium, as you yourself point out in this post. I am not a programmer, but a lowly scripter, an Applescripter at that, which is actually why I'm writing, because of the passing bashing it was given in one of your quotes. Enough with the crapping on Applescript. It gets things done, it leverages the power of first-class applications, such as InDesign, TextWrangler and hundreds more in such a way that it enables non-programmers who don't care about clever list-sorting algorithms, to accomplish important tasks for real projects for real money, quickly, and without having to become 'real' programmers, which as you have made so clear, mere mortals should never try to do anyway. Maybe PHP is popular because it works, because it is easy which is interesting, because it yields results without a lot of mucking about in hyperspace. Easy is interesting, hard is boring. Personally, if all I was going to do all day was pull out nails, I'd take the double-claw hammer, thanks. I guess I want to take the easy way if the destination is the same. Of course, if you and the other code critics were REAL programmers, you would have written your own replacements for PHP, to your exacting standards, using REAL languages that don't use wussy crap like memory management. Get down to the metal or get off the pot. Don't try to learn though, please.