shod

He didn't say you _can't_ use PHP for such things, he said PHP is "great" for getting smaller sites built quickly. It's possible to build very large apps with PHP alone, if you like, but there are other solutions I think are preferable. Most of them weren't even available when Facebook was born.

For example, I would rather build a Facebook-sized app in Rails than a PHP framework, especially with Rails 3's new features. There are some very capable PHP frameworks out there, but you'll still end up writing much larger models and a lot more code than if you were using Rails.

> Do complex interview questions really test your educational achievement? ...

When interviewing prospective software engineer employees, a Google interviewer asks software engineering related questions, to test the interviewee's knowledge of software engineering. Questions like these:

http://jpaint.drizzlehosting.com/google.html

That's a nice illustration of the balance of creativity, lateral thinking, logical thinking, and technical competence Google expects from the engineers it interviews. Note that the interview questions aren't in the form of, "Where did you complete your expected MSc in Computer Science?" Instead, the interviewee is expected to demonstrate real achievement from their education; i.e., knowledge and thinking ability.

But Google hires non-engineer craftsmen, too. Catering staff, to steal the article author's example. Just a hunch: Google conducts more than one type of interview: catering staff are not expected to design class libraries or database tables as part of their interview process.