PHP is a complete disgrace for serious Web application development.

PHP makes it possible for people to use it poorly, yes. Blame bad developers, not the language that lets them write bad code.

If I want to write a widget that a majority of designers can easily plug into their own sites, I write it in PHP, because it's portable.

Maybe that makes me an amateur, but sometimes I can't just code in the pretty, pure languages all day.

I agree PHP has a lot of ugliness to it, but it's hard to argue with things like the success of Facebook.

If that's not serious webapp development work, I'm not sure what qualifies.