PHP is capable. A lot of people don't understand that. A lot of people refuse to accept that. PHP isn't just some web-centric programming language to make it easy to whip up little scripts to accomplish simple tasks. It's very capable of doing anything you can do with Perl or Python. And, with a C programmer handy, it can be extended just like Perl and Python making it capable of doing just about anything you can do in Java or even C++.
The problem is that "real programmers" overlook PHP. It's too simple, too elementary, and doesn't suit their needs before they even look at it. So, because of this, there aren't nearly as many *good* libraries, frameworks, and utilities available for PHP. Sure, this is getting better and better every day. However, what's available for PHP pales in comparison to the high-quality, easy to use, well-written, well-documented libraries and applications available in the Perl and Python worlds.
So I've been playing with Python a little. I like it. I really do. It's not as simple as PHP, and it seems to have a little "magic" behind it (which is one of the things I hate about Perl). But, really, it's enjoyable to program in — It's fairly simple, it makes sense (once you learn the "magic"), and there are a lot of people writing really good libraries for it.
Having a large base of libraries is important. Without it, a programmer developing a complicated project is either forced to kludge his way through complicated portions of code, or left to invent the wheel each and every time a library is needed. Additionally, since the programmer is probably focused on his own project, and not so much with the code of these addditional libraries, they aren't written so well. This makes them buggy, and less likely to be adopted by other programmers which means that the next programmer who needs similar functionality is left to invent the wheel himself, again.
There are quite a few interesting and well written projects on the way for PHP5. With PHP5's advanced OO capabilities, I think more programmers are willing to consider it, instead of laughing at it. But, even if it is finally accepted as a "real" language capable of performing "real" tasks and programmers begin writing libraries for it, it'll take a while before it even comes close to matching what's out there for Python.
Sure, PHP5 has "Propel":http://propel.phpdb.org/ for handling persistent objects. I haven't used it, because it's PHP5 only. But Python has "SQLObject":http://www.sqlobject.org/ which works now and has had some time to let the bugs settle out of it. And just look at "Twisted":http://www.twistedmatrix.com/products/twisted. I mean, "damn!". It'll take quite some time to get even close to that in the PHP world.
So, my allegiance is swaying. I've yet to use Python for any large, production, project. But I'm seriously considering it now.
