I would note that the article doesn't consider having to install any custom PEAR/PECL packages that your PHP application might require. Sometimes they need to be installed on the command line (as root), or sometimes as OS packages. If you're using managed web hosting, you will probably need to email the administrators and ask them to install the needed packages, and they might refuse.
In this context Ruby on Rails wins because of its standardized Gemfile approach. Every RoR application always specifies the dependencies in a standard way and their installation is always part of the deployment process. PHP has nothing like this.
The same applies to asset pipelines. When your application contains SASS/SCSS or CoffeeScript files, you need to worry about how they're going to be compiled, optimized and deployed. Ruby on Rails also standardizes this so that all you need is the same basic RoR application layout that you generated in the beginning.
So, as long as the web hosting provider supports Ruby on Rails, I think it's currently the simplest way to deploy full-featured web applications. Using PHP will require you to either 1) not use many modern web technologies or 2) build your own deployment processes to support them.
Composer (getcomposer.org) and Packagist (packagist.org) are largely a popular replacement for PEAR, though once you need a C extension (PECL), you're right, it does become a pain.
While I agree with you, I don't think PEAR/PECL a good exemple. Even with a good Gemfile if the libxml2-dev is not installed you will not be able to bundle your Rails app which use Nokogiri.
Where the argument of PHP run on any cheap shared hosting fail for me is more about the php.ini config. You can't rely only on the PHP version to know if your app will run.
In this context Ruby on Rails wins because of its standardized Gemfile approach. Every RoR application always specifies the dependencies in a standard way and their installation is always part of the deployment process. PHP has nothing like this.
The same applies to asset pipelines. When your application contains SASS/SCSS or CoffeeScript files, you need to worry about how they're going to be compiled, optimized and deployed. Ruby on Rails also standardizes this so that all you need is the same basic RoR application layout that you generated in the beginning.
So, as long as the web hosting provider supports Ruby on Rails, I think it's currently the simplest way to deploy full-featured web applications. Using PHP will require you to either 1) not use many modern web technologies or 2) build your own deployment processes to support them.