Python or PHP?

[Simon John]

I've been a PHP and Perl programmer (amongst others) for 10 years or
more now, and a Python coder for 3 or so.

I have come to hate PHP now, it's pseudo-OOP is awful, it's dog slow at
handling XML, it's so easy to use that most of the programmers I've had
contact with are very sloppy and do things like extract($_GET); or put
database usernames and passwords in index.php. I also have to agree
that php.net/manual seems to be the main reference that coders use -
which is not good if the comments are wrong!

Python seems to force you to write better code, maybe because of the
indentation, exception handling, proper OOP etc. Plus it's not so tied
into web stuff, in fact most of my Python programming is for the
desktop.

I still love Perl, it's a bit of an art form, as "there's more than one
way to do it", whereas Python usually only allows one way to do it,
which may or may not be a better mantra....

I've come to allocate PHP the same standing as ASP, VB or Java - the
language is OK, but the programmers are usually crap.