Same reason C doesn't introduce classes and C++ doesn't remove pointers: it's a) part of the core language and b) extremely inconsequential for any serious developer.

I actually like the clarity these dollar signs add in a code base. Makes it easier to recognise (dynamic) functions, and makes it harder to accidentally shadow methods.

Other languages will let you do `const Math = {}` and nuke the entire math library, or write stuff like `int fopen = 0;` to make the fopen method call inaccessible in that scope. With PHP, you don't need to restrict your variable name to "something that hopefully won't conflict with an obscure method".

The -> is a leftover from an older programming language that I'd rather have replaced by a ., but not at the cost of breaking existing code (which it surely would).

I do also appreciate that php has an explicit string concat operator rather than overloading +. Though of course it could just use another symbol for that to get rid of -> if we're talking about time travel. As it stands, you can't really do $obj.method(), because method() could be a function returning a string as well, so it's ambiguous

> The -> is a leftover from an older programming language that I'd rather have replaced by a ., but not at the cost of breaking existing code (which it surely would).

Isn't it because . was already used for string concatenation in PHP. I mean the -> syntax wasn't invented by PHP but it didn't just inherit it without thought either.