In this recent post Nikita Popov looks at some of the usefulness of PHP and some responses to this post from Jeff Atwood about the language.

People come to PHP because they have some problem and they need to solve it. This is what PHP really shines at. You can simply take your static HTML website, add a simple <?php include 'counter.php'; ?> in there, and … be done! From there you start writing simple scripts, learn how to process forms, how to talk to the database, etc. After some time you start using object oriented programming and maybe make use of some framework.

He supports Jeff's thoughts on the usefulness of the language, but points out one part of the post that clearly shows an incorrect view of PHP's current state. It points out how "so little has changed in PHP" and Nikita refutes it with some of the most recent updates including advanced OOP support, namespacing and lambda support.