The number of users is not equivalent to quality. It's an indication of quality.
As for quality...
No, Wal-Mart isn't a purveyor of items with the qualities of being expensive, extremely limited, and old.
Quality is a subjective word, defined by different aspects. Just as I can, with justification, define Apple as a purveyor of low-quality hardware, I can say equally it sells high-quality software.
It's not even an indication of quality, it's an indication that many people use it.
I guess you can quibble about definitions all day if you like, and you can take "family heirlooms" literally instead of metaphorically as it was intended, but that won't make Wal-Mart a seller of quality items nor will it make PHP a well-designed language under any sort of definition that is relevant to reality.
And, honestly, if the only thing we're going to argue about is whether or not quantity equals/implies quality and the definition of "quality", the argument against PHP has already won.
As you say, quality is defined by a number of factors. I'd say that a good, high-level general purpose programming language should be:
- coherent
- non-verbose
- provide solid high-level abstractions
- safe
- have a solid standard library
- optionally, easy to get started with
Of all these qualities, PHP is geared toward "ease of access" with a sprinkling of non-verbosity, and fails mostly or totally in the other categories. Just like the popularity of the Millenium trilogy does not mean Stieg Larsson can write, the popularity of PHP is more an indication of its low barrier to entry (especially combined with widespread hosting support) than anything else.
> Just like the popularity of the Millenium trilogy does not mean Stieg Larsson can write
Technically, it does. =)
I'm surprised you wouldn't consider the license a language is released under as one of the factors. Or maybe you do, and you forgot to list it. And therein lies the issue: the number of people are indicative of certain qualities, qualities you might not consider important, or might not weigh as highly as other people.
I love erlang, but I'd be hard pressed to use erlang for as many projects as I would like. Not because of failings of the language itself, but because certain qualities it does not possess (ubiquity for one, which affects so many other areas).
