I would never want to use php's "just recompile it with the new dependencies" approach ever again. It's a complete mess as soon as you go off the rails of what's included by default.
But now you're hitting on one of the main points that was always criticized in PHP: the fact that it came with a lot of batteries included. The upside of this is that it makes PHP applications very easy to deploy, because often, you either don't need to resort to binary dependencies outside the realms of your OS's packaging system, or there will be a `php[major-version]-[library_binding]` package for your OS probably already in your OS's official package mirrors. Say all you want about PHP, but of all the application stacks I've had to deploy, PHP was and is probably still the simplest. The advantage of that shouldn't be underestimated. The only serious competitor in that space that I've ever touched is probably Go.
Yeah, you can recompile PHP 2-3 times per year, and it's just long line of args, nothing more. And you can compare it with every-time compilation of modern js apps. What an equation! And you forgot to mention Rust, but let's pretend it's normal way of arguing.
