Don't get me wrong. i like PHP. It's a fun little language with it's own set of weirdness and constructs that make it challenging, but there's one thing i kind of miss when i compare it to other languages.
There's no step debugger.
That means that unlike, say, perl or c++, i'm kinda forced to write a lot of code "pull the trigger" and watch the pretty errors fly by in the logs. i know that there are actual step debuggers available for PHP, but they're pretty darn hacky. Most involve adding extensions to Apache or running from a specialized IDE, but those aren't really good solutions, because they don't run anywhere, you don't always have the ability to load libraries onto a server. The rest (like APD) are mostly for profiling more than actual debugging.
Ah well, 'tis all part of the challenge.
Well, that and finding new cursewords to make up when things don't work.
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I did work in Perl for a few years before bothering to add the debugger to my toolbox.
It's probably ruined me for good, but I did get a lot of experience black-boxing the language and reading deeply into the (far, far superior to PHP) documentation.
PHP was the same, except that going old-skool wasn't a choice, and the resentment I felt towards it came so much more easily.