Aren't Corollas reputed to be functional and reliable? Seems like a weird analogy.

Having always referred to Java as the Honda Civic of language-ecosystem, I take offense to this claim that PHP is the robust, cheap, and reliable workhorse.

Functional and reliable, but often maligned by Real Car People for being boring and underwhelming.

Granted, the specific directions of the criticisms aren't quite the same, but there's definitely a decent analogy in there.

I don't know much about particular models, but perhaps a better make to pick as an apt analogy for PHP would be Hyundai: formerly a brand with fairly widespread reliability issues, that cleaned them up a lot more recently, and now a very solid pick.

Yeah. I had a 1990 Corolla from its best selling car in the world period and it was functional reliable and designed with a lot of care even if it was a simple design compared to fancier stuff.