PHP is not that bad ..

Only a lot of "developers" are bad in using PHP.

I have seen a lot of devs defend php.

It's true, php isn't that bad. It gets the job done, which is any languages goal.

However, the reason why I, and most other devs feel that php is not good either, is because its generally unpleasant to code in php.

Simple things like switching between the browser and error log a million times is very frustrating.

The language syntax itself isn't too good either. A simple "var" to declare variables instead of having to put '$' everywhere, or a simple '.' instead of "->" would makes things so muvh better.

The documentation is horrible.

When I first started, I couldn't even get MAMP to work.

Even though I mainly use php7 for backend, it often leaves a sour taste.

PHP has come a long way, and I use to have a good stream of gigs come my way for Drupal and WordPress jobs.

It's just not sexy or fun like Ruby or Node, so the fanboys (like me) love to hate it. We all need an enemy, right?

PHP is like Nickelback. Hating it makes you cool.

@harambae re: debugging, it sounds like you just need to set things up properly or use a decent framework that does that stuff for you.
Otherwise you're just bitching about semantics and personal preference.