Completely agreed. I'm very vocal about PHP's flaws, but I try to keep my hate away from beginners. When you're starting, the important part is getting shit done. The language doesn't matter.
(However, as soon as the chance presents itself, I'd try to get said beginner away from PHP. That shit melts your brain.)
One problem I can see with that is, it is very hard for a beginner to see the real flaws of PHP. So after he/she starts to get shit done in PHP, they will have their head so far up their asses that it will take a large amount of your time and effort to convince them to move away to a better language.
For eg, take the case of PHP arrays. If you are a beginner, you will probably have fallen in love with this thing. And when you show them a better language, and they finds out that it doesn't have arrays like PHP, they might feel very unsure about your claims that what ever you are introducing is the better language. If they have found /r/php, then it becomes almost impossible to convince them. You will have to counter the vague bullshit fed by 50 guys from /r/php to make any progress with the matter.
So while the author point about getting your feet wet is important, it is also important that you are not doing that be entering into a swamp that can suck you all the way down.
(However, as soon as the chance presents itself, I'd try to get said beginner away from PHP. That shit melts your brain.)