Hi, [id://Spidy]. I always wonder who "they" are when "they say" or "they choose PHP over Perl" ;-)

I agree that PHP is popular, and it may be getting increasingly so. I'm not all that familiar with PHP - I've written a few things in it, but find it's not really something I care to use. I might use it for a guestbook, I suppose...

I think maybe some people are using PHP because it makes certain Web tasks easier; but from what I've seen, PHP isn't nearly as versatile as Perl. IOW, PHP may do well in its niche, but as an all-round programming language, it doesn't compare favorably to Perl. It seems to me that there are lots more would-be Webmasters out there than programmers. These folks may not care to learn much of a language, beyond the minimum needed to get their Website going. The influx of non-programmer Webmasters might skew the numbers a bit, making PHP seem unrealistically popular. Just a thought...