The problem is that many early design decisions were made when PHP was a small personal project with the goal of accomplishing something immediately. It wasn't intended to be object-oriented. But that was a long time ago. Many of the points made about PHP design are ancient decisions and difficult to change because of backwards compatibility.
I'd say it's entirely unfair and incorrect to say the bar for inclusion has been "it compiles". Even some of the decisions made for PHP4, which I disagreed with, were debated endlessly.
Take, for example, the introduction of namespaces into PHP -- it got a lot of flack for using an additional character but if you study the design carefully it's nearly impossible for it work any other way in PHP. You might look at that and say there was no planning or foresight (or that it was simply the easiest solution) but that betrays the truth.
I'd say it's entirely unfair and incorrect to say the bar for inclusion has been "it compiles". Even some of the decisions made for PHP4, which I disagreed with, were debated endlessly.
Take, for example, the introduction of namespaces into PHP -- it got a lot of flack for using an additional character but if you study the design carefully it's nearly impossible for it work any other way in PHP. You might look at that and say there was no planning or foresight (or that it was simply the easiest solution) but that betrays the truth.