I've designed languages from the ground up, and written interpreters and compilers, so maybe I'm a bit of a snob regarding that kind of thing.

With all the levels of abstraction nowadays it's impossible for anyone to understand the whole stack, so I don't blame you for not caring how things are implemented under the hood.

But that issue with PHP (one of many) made me want to find the person who wrote that abomination and slap them with a baseball bat.