Why do people consistently choose PHP over Perl?

First off, I'm not at all sure that you are right in that assertion.

It might be true, or it might not, but the truth is, I simply don't care. If you think that PHP is a 'better' choice than Perl for writing your web application, then by all means use PHP. I won't try to stop you.

And I won't argue with your reasoning either. Whether you think it's better because 'everybody is using it'; or because you found a pre-existing application or framework that works for your application; or because you're one of the thousands of intelligent, well-educated, but otherwise 'newbie' programmers that are getting into web programming every year and simply find PHP easier to get into.

In fact, even if you decided to cut to the chase and take all ambiguity and subjectivity and chance out of the equation by setting up a suitable research project to decide definitively, which was better. You know, take two teams, of equal numbers of experienced PHP & Perl web programmers; Set them up in controlled conditions before handing them both a brief for (say) a shopping site. Something reasonably meaty. Say 1,000 suppliers; 10,000 products; automated CC processing for say 5 major cards; two different physical locations with one each of a front-of-house web-server and back-of-house DB & MIS machines; load sharing between the FOH machines and DB replication between BOH machines.

If you did all that and came here with definitive proof that the PHP set-up was faster to program and more reliable in production, then I might listen carefully to the information and bear it in mind if I ever had to program a similar web application. But until then, I will continue to use Perl for most of what I do, and other languages, but not PHP, for those parts of my projects that need that.

But when you come here and tell me that: "loads of people are using PHP instead of Perl and we should do something about that". I'll say: Why? Why should I care what other people find best for their coding? And why do you?

and asked about a project to increase the visibility of Perl and got called an idiot for his trouble.

I didn't call anyone an idiot. I simply pointed out that popularity of a coding language is no measure of its effectiveness, and fitness for purpose. And to choose your programming language on that basis is a very questionable decision.

I wear spectacles and have done for many years. Over the last few years, the commercial, high volume, fast throughput chains of opticians have succeeded in making glasses a fashion item. And with that, they brought about the vogue for wearing heavy framed, narrow lensed spectacles. Made them the 'in thing'. So much so, and so successfully that it became almost impossible to find light-weight, wire-framed, full-lensed glasses in many chains, because no one would buy them as they were seen as 'old fashioned'.

The problem is, if you talk to a ophthalmologist who's livelihood isn't derived from those high-volume, fast throughput chains, they will tell you that heavy framed, narrow lenses are trouble. They are almost impossible to fit with bi-focal or vari-focal lenses. They can cause physical strains because of the need to rotate the head up and down and side to side, rather than just the eyes as nature intended. But still, millions bought into the narrow is new, modern, fashionable.

Of course, now everyone has the narrow ones, the marketeers will look to sell us 1980s style snooker glasses. Or 1950s elasticated side, small rounds. Or whatever else they manage to capture the popular psyche with. Cos that's what they do.