In recent months I've been moving away from PHP, a language for which I have developed in for 6 years. I learned it because it was free instead of learning ASP. I made a website for my boyfriend so he could write articles about computer gaming hardware. I interned at a place and did PHP, and then moved to another company doing PHP.
I was pretty content with PHP ... until I saw Ruby first, then made friends with some Perl geeks, realized they weren't all arrogant l33t language snobs and took another look at Perl. Hey, its kind fun! PHP had become boring and Ruby and Perl gave me a new challenge. At first, I only read them thinking "how can I do this in PHP.." and managed to get my company where I did PHP to send me to YAPC. But after a time, I realized I didn't like PHP anymore and I wanted to do Perl or Ruby.
I've written a few articles on CodeSnipers on the differences between Ruby and PHP. I wrote one on datatypes in PHP vs Perl. Click on the Ruby topic on the side to find those articles.
Since I have been coerced into giving a 5 min talk at Perl meeting tonight about this.. Here's some of my thoughts in a blog...