Comment by the_duke
3 years ago
Ductaped languages usually exist because they served some specific need, become popular and then evolved from there. PHP is the perfect example.
They were not "clean sheet, let's make a great new language" implementations.
PHP was already ductaped at the point of PHP/FI 2 [1], when it became more or less a proper programming language. PHP survived despite its ductape nature.
[1] https://www.php.net/manual/phpfi2.php