Taking PHP Seriously

This post details the rationale for choosing PHP for server-side logic, highlighting its strengths in state isolation, concurrency via web requests, and fast developer workflow. It addresses common criticisms of PHP (type conversions, reference/value semantics, failure-obliviousness, standard library inconsistencies) and introduces Hack as a solution to mitigate these issues through gradual typing. The post also introduces HHVM as a high-performance JIT environment, noting Slack's migration and subsequent latency improvements.