I started programming with PHP back in 2001, I think. I moved to C# when dotnet was released shortly after, but still have a personal website that's built with PHP, and a couple of years back I updated it (from something like PHP 4/5, I forget) to the latest version PHP. I was pleasantly surprised - it wouldn't be my first choice by a long shot, but I can see why others would choose it today. And there's always been a good community around it too.
I also started with JavaScript a long time back, maybe something like 1998-1999. I've always found it a most loathsome language, and the anaemic standard library a huge barrier. It's not entirely the language's fault, of course - being the language of the web was always going to mean glacial progress. Recently I worked on a vanilla ES6 project (since browser support is finally there), and at long last I wouldn't quite describe it as "loathsome" anymore! Still, it's a far cry from the nicities of Typescript, and the tiny standard library remains an issue.
Having seen both PHP and JavaScript evolve over around 2 decades, I'd probably argue that PHP has evolved more as a language than JavaScript has.
I also started with JavaScript a long time back, maybe something like 1998-1999. I've always found it a most loathsome language, and the anaemic standard library a huge barrier. It's not entirely the language's fault, of course - being the language of the web was always going to mean glacial progress. Recently I worked on a vanilla ES6 project (since browser support is finally there), and at long last I wouldn't quite describe it as "loathsome" anymore! Still, it's a far cry from the nicities of Typescript, and the tiny standard library remains an issue.
Having seen both PHP and JavaScript evolve over around 2 decades, I'd probably argue that PHP has evolved more as a language than JavaScript has.