Every PHP programmer has lamented PHP's TMA (Too Many Ampersands) design, inconsistent method naming, function parameters order, etc. But PHP is the 800 pound gorilla with 15 years of momentum. It is what it is: a DSL written in C that's good enough at web development.
But you ain't gonna teach that old PHP dog new tricks without creating an entirely new language---in this case a DSL written in Java. When you get finished redesigning PHP, it's not PHP anymore. It's not even JPHP.
BTW, there are already languages that are free of sigils, semi-colons, and braces: Python and Ruby have been there for 15 years. If you need to do web development in those languages, they provide ample tools (Django, Rails, etc.) Both Python and Ruby have been ported to the JVM.
But you ain't gonna teach that old PHP dog new tricks without creating an entirely new language---in this case a DSL written in Java. When you get finished redesigning PHP, it's not PHP anymore. It's not even JPHP.
BTW, there are already languages that are free of sigils, semi-colons, and braces: Python and Ruby have been there for 15 years. If you need to do web development in those languages, they provide ample tools (Django, Rails, etc.) Both Python and Ruby have been ported to the JVM.