I wasn't asked me to defend anything. Let's not forget that back in 2004 many alternatives that are fairly robust today were not as functional as PHP was.
I was referring to this exchange from the article:
Q: "4. What do you think of PHP as a language from your perspective, regarding that Facebook was initially written in PHP then transformed to C++ using HipHop for PHP. What are the pros and cons of using C++ over PHP at Facebook?"
A: "I was afraid you were going to ask that :o"
Sounds like being asked to defend your decision to use PHP to me, unless I'm reading it wrong.
