I've been working with PHP since the early 2000s, and it has undergone massive changes. I made a video recently called "PHP doesn't suck (anymore)"[0] to try to cover some of the changes from 2012 to now. If you read through the comments you see a lot of people surprised at how much the language has evolved. And a lot of people saying "PHP sucks lol," but it is YouTube afterall.
[0] https://youtu.be/ZRV3pBuPxEQ