Why many people choose PHP

There were many questions asked in one topic , the answers to which were partially given in another .

Let's try to ask a few basic questions, but not from the point of view of language, but from the point of view of common sense. And let's see what answers reality gives us.

And the seeming injustice, why PHP drives in the market of web applications, like Microsoft in desktop software, will turn into obvious.

I'll start with a simple statement. Many misfortunes of people are caused either by too much choice, or by the limited choice in any sphere.
')
Let's see what answers PHP gives to typical questions of web application development, what choice of answers there are.

Question (Q): How many programmers can a website make me?
Answer (O): At the request of the "php summary" in Yandex there are 28 million responses, the "python summary" / "ruby summary" - one million. Nuff said. Offhand, 30 times more PHP developers. Hence, the competition among them is higher, and wages are wiser, and easier to find.

Question (Q): I want to raise a business card site. Are there any ready-made engines?
Answer (A): Yes, hundreds . Offhand: Joomla, Drupal, ModX, Bitrix.

Question (B): And if an online store?
Answer (O): No problem! Magento, PHPShop, osCommerce, etc.

Question (Q): You will also need a forum and a blog.
Answer (O): Wordpress for blogs, vBulletin / IPB for forums.

Question (Q): And if a small social network with blogs, like Habr?
Answer (O): Livestreet is the best engine IMHO. Generally, very cool.

Question (Q): So. I want Facebook, I will go to earn my first billions.
Answer (O): No problem. PHPfox - out of the box face book engine.

Question (B): Phew, I think I thought of all the projects, I found the engines. How about hosting?
Answer (O): PHP + MySQL is on any hosting. Over 9000 of them.

Question (Q): Good. And if you need to refine the sites?
Answer (O): No problem. Any studios, freelance sites. See point about the summary of PHP programmers.

Question (Q): But what about the load? My Facebook will be visited by many, many people!
Answer (O): Great. Vkontakte, Facebook, Wikimedia - work fine under load.

Question (Q): A friend told me something that like PHP is shit, and taxonet is Python.
Answer (O): Python is so apparently driving. 28 times less programmers, 30 times less ready-made frameworks, ready-made engines of a unit. Calculate how much it will cost you to develop your projects from scratch? - Come on. - $ 3,000,000 - Thank you, ok, let's try Python another time. Charge your team, we will do.

Actually, that's all. For all the questions that confront anyone who wants to do something on the Internet and thinks with a cost point, PHP answers best of all other languages ​​in the field of small and medium businesses. For larger projects, of course, DoNet or Java is suitable - but it will depend on the manager’s talent to justify why the customer should either get hooked on Windows and everything related to licenses and other amenities like closed source code, or why in the case of Java it will cost two times more (both in development from scratch, and support, and this is not counting twice as much hardware as PHP - and Zhabasayt has no less bugs).

Therefore, at this moment business chooses PHP. How housewives choose windows. Most - it is not always right, of course. Maybe I would also like N. for the presidency, but the people vote for GDP.