In his <a href="http://phplens.com/phpeverywhere/?q=node/view/222>latest post, John Lim asks the question that's been on quite a few PHP developer's minds - "Is Ruby brainwashing us?"

Bruce Tate recently wrote a book "Beyond Java" that is critical of Java and praises Ruby excessively. The book has very few positive things to say about PHP.

Well, my personal preference in terms of language is a simple clean C-like syntax. I want something that I can teach programmers in 2 days. I don't want an unfamiliar syntax that requires relearning a lot. I don't want programmers to agonize for hours on the right way to code something new. That's why I don't particularly like Ruby's syntax (though i admit i am a novice at Ruby). In contrast, PHP is basically C (or C++ or Java) with $ signs in front of variables - it's that easy.

He continues on to give code examples of both PHP and Ruby that do roughly the same thing - basicslly the same, but for someone who's been programming for a while, the PHP one might seem more familiar at first glance. He also points out some comments made that Ruby is a bit over-hyped...