I feel like answering this comment could start a possible argument, which I have no interest in doing.

I do, however, want to point that anyone interested in comparing language design choices can conclude by themselves this is likely a strong factor.

You can find references like the classic "PHP: a fractal of bad design"[1] which not only talks about the language itself but SQL injection, error handling and tons of other issues. It summarizes most of the important points.

I can also add a few issues like[2][3], which unfortunately are not isolated incidents: these are a reflection of core design decisions and how the language approaches software design as a whole.

I stand by my point, which I'll define more precisely as:

"A badly-designed language either makes it hard for developers to do good choices, or makes it easy for developers to do bad choices."

PHP is not alone, but it is a prime example of this.

You can disagree with this assessment - and that's OK.

[1] https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

[2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36867718/php-rename-fail...

[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11360511/php-rename-how-...