That comparison may be apt. PHP at that time was a mix of some good ideas (ease of deployment) with some horrible ones (register globals on by default is unexcusable), and some poor planning. We all lived with the fallout of that for a very long time.

The register globals issue could have been avoided at very little cost, if any cost at all, to the popularity and spread of the language and many millions of dollars and much personal information would have been saved.