For better or worse, the one thing that I can say that is very positive about php, is php.net has basically great documentation and it's usually easy enough to find what you need about particular methods. If php didn't have the documentation that they do, it would not be as successful as it is.
In general I like the new design. I do have one thing that I'm not wild about:<p><a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/" rel="nofollow">http://www.php.net/manual/en/</a><p>The page that you are dropped into for that is not very friendly. I much prefer the layout for a sub-page once you've clicked a link.<p><a href="http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.php</a>
It reminds me of Drupal circa 2006, not that that's necessarily a bad thing (it's been a tremendously usable site since forever, so if it ain't broke…), but "modern" is a bit of a stretch.
Note that users of extensions like Ghostery will have the search functionality (e.g. <a href="http://us2.php.net/results.php?q=curl&l=en&p=all" rel="nofollow">http://us2.php.net/results.php?q=curl&l=en&p=all</a>) "broken." You'll have to allow the Google AJAX Search API permissions for it to work.
Search does not work without javascript.<p>Fixed header takes away screen real estate.<p>Grey text is hard to read.<p>Sends every pageview to Google.<p>I do not like it.
Just looking at the home page, the text being sooo close to the left-hand margin really bothers me. I use a portrait monitor and browse full screen and it just feels odd having to read the text butted up against my monitor border.
It's simple- That's awesome.<p>To all the snark related to "modern", oh you mean the cluster-f*ck of animated javascript and sensory overload that has become the modern web? please.. you can K.I.S.S it.
I'm the alignment nazi and here's your guru meditation:<p><pre><code> .navbar .brand {
padding: .5em 0 .5em 0;
}
.navbar .brand img {
margin-left: -0.2em;
}</code></pre>
Well, they moved from 1996 to 2006. So, progress?<p>Still, big improvement. Snarky comments aside, it seems easier on my eyes. Not a big fan of underlined hyperlinks though.