Is this some sort of snide commentary on how much more limited of a language php is? It doesn't seem like it could possibly be meant for production. I guess I could see it being a fun learning project, tho.
Yes. So, do you really want him writing PHP?
1 - Writing the example in PHP from scratch would be at least as simple as writing it in Ruby, it's only because it's been converted that the PHP code is so convoluted.
2 - Depending on what you consider a to be 'small' app, PHP is probably the better language. I find Ruby is more suited to larger scale apps, especially where persistence is advantageous.
In short, Fructose is just going to give PHP more undeserved bad press.