There are so many facets to this conversation that it's hard to even find one simple place to start. However, being a 20 year+ experienced web dev (perl -> php) I would feel remorse if I did not at least give a tidbit here. I have seen the entire gambit of good and bad code. Every time when it I think I have seen the worst... guess what? it's the third Tuesday of the month and BAM! We now get a new definition of ROCK BOTTOM! However, every piece of bad PHP code that I have seen was: a) made in the past b) fixed the problem of that moment So can you really say it's bad code? It did what it need to do at that place in time. Also if a project has been online and functioning for 7 years can you really say it's a piece of crap and refuse to work on it? Yes it should be remade with a newer vision, budget, tools, technology but for real it's been online for 7 years and got the job done. That's more than what you can say about any phone, automobile, laptop, etc... The php web dev sphere is filled with these "perfectionist" young kids who spend all day complaining about PHP. Everything to them should be done in GO, Python, or ... These people don't last long at any one job because they are never happy with what they have and never see the potential for what is possible. If they would spend 1/2 of the time finding joy in PHP that they spend complaining about PHP well... Bad stuff is made by bad people, or by companies that don't focus on quality and focus only on time and money. The worst projects to work on are for companies that don't have a clue what they are really doing and hire contractors 3 months at a time to Band-Aid problems. But this is not a PHP problem this is a make money and shut up problem of the economic system. After 22 years of doing this I can say that if you want to work with a good environment, with good code, with good tools, with positive experiences, then you need to look for and find a work environment that practices proper Agile and Socriocracy methodologies. Make sure that they have a scrum master, that they do real stand ups daily, retrospectives, refinements, sprints, adhere to a correct definition of ready, definition of done, etc... It makes a HUGE difference trust me. When you are working in a quality first model and not a waterfall, support desk fix the problem model, you will find a real inner peace/zen to your daily work and coding. It will become a pleasure and you will stop going from emergency to emergency. Switching web dev languages will not fix the problem. Hanging out with better people will.