Is PHP a powerful tool?

PHP, one of the most powerful Server side web technology, is spreading in web development circle like a forest fire. You can find trillions of PHP webpages over the internet.
PHP evolves from C language, and provides the same functionality as the C.
The great advantage of PHP over other web development technologies is that it is easy to learn, easy to manage and provide rapid development.

please feel free to share your thoughts regarding PHP and other web technolgies you like.

How much PHP do you actually know?

• PHP is by no means one of the most powerful server side technologies. It is an ad-hoc scripting language maintained by a team of volunteers. Most large systems that use PHP have parts made in C/++ to do the difficult work.
• The spread of PHP is mostly due to it ease of use and availability. Most PHP sites are either pre-made scripts or maintained by newbies.
• The PHP engine was written in C, it did not evolve from C.
• PHP doesn't give you the same functionality as C, not even close. The syntax resembles C, and many of the concepts work similarly, but C is FAR more featured that PHP will ever will be.

And as far as language goes, it has a bad coding convention.

stripslashes() and mysql_query() -> can't stick to one naming convention?

I say PHP is the most popular web scripting language. The main feature is the thing that is free and along with mysql offers you a very powerfull suite for building large web apps.