php is great

Why, you ask? The short answer: it's powerful, it's easy to use, and it's free. Extremely robust and scalable, PHP can be used for the most demanding of applications, and delivers excellent performance even at high loads. Built-in database support means that you can begin creating data-driven applications immediately, XML support makes it suitable for the new generation of XML-enabled applications, and the extensible architecture makes it easy for developers to use it as a framework to build their own custom modules. Toss in a great manual, a knowledgeable developer community and a really low price (can you spell f-r-e-e?) and you've got the makings of a winner!

PHP is good for what it does. Admittedly the syntax doesnt really scale to do anything beyond web programming, but the task of web programming is pretty well organized so it doesnt call for a language that can do complex data structures or any complicated algorithms. PHP does what it does well enough, and all the C and Lisp programmers can continue to grind their teeth at it.