2) PHP is a perfect beginner language. Having tried everything from C, ASM, Java, Prolog, Java etc - I'd much rather play around in PHP. Ruby is similar - it's a well designed language with fairly little cruft - but I've limited experience in it.
PHP is good for a beginner because it has very little ceremony, an ALGOL-like syntax and a big standard library, but you can't say it doesn't carry cruft: it has a lot of bad decisions that can't be changed for backward compatibility, particularly the rampant inconsistency (both in the language and in the stdlib) and the kitchen sink of the global namespace.
I liked PHP until I learned Python. It's certainly not perfect, but at least it actually follow some rules.
PHP is good for a beginner because it has very little ceremony, an ALGOL-like syntax and a big standard library, but you can't say it doesn't carry cruft: it has a lot of bad decisions that can't be changed for backward compatibility, particularly the rampant inconsistency (both in the language and in the stdlib) and the kitchen sink of the global namespace.
I liked PHP until I learned Python. It's certainly not perfect, but at least it actually follow some rules.