There really is no 'community'. The official documentation is fine (the included comments actually make it pretty good).
The problem is mostly the widespread support and low barrier to entry. PHP is supported on every crappy $2/m hosting plan.
It's also the language of a lot of the net's more popular CMSs. (WordPress?).
People have a site and want to make it do stuff. The site is already either using PHP or that's all the host supports.
PHP gets most of the users who aren't trying to get into programming (and may have no interest in it whatsoever) - they just wanna get something done. Some of those people develop an interest and stick around and learn the language, but aren't really forced to learn any software development methodologies.
PHP acts as a filter, collecting all of the non-programmers and people who have stumbled into programming accidentally or unintentionally. People who write Ruby or Python are generally people who set out to be a programmer.
The language itself has its warts, but I see the above, not the warts, as the primary driver of all the crappy code out there.
The problem is mostly the widespread support and low barrier to entry. PHP is supported on every crappy $2/m hosting plan.
It's also the language of a lot of the net's more popular CMSs. (WordPress?).
People have a site and want to make it do stuff. The site is already either using PHP or that's all the host supports.
PHP gets most of the users who aren't trying to get into programming (and may have no interest in it whatsoever) - they just wanna get something done. Some of those people develop an interest and stick around and learn the language, but aren't really forced to learn any software development methodologies.
PHP acts as a filter, collecting all of the non-programmers and people who have stumbled into programming accidentally or unintentionally. People who write Ruby or Python are generally people who set out to be a programmer.
The language itself has its warts, but I see the above, not the warts, as the primary driver of all the crappy code out there.