They tried with Java (Tomcat/JSP) which from memory wasn't that bad to setup, and I even remember trying a Perl variation where you inlined Perl code instead of

They tried with Java (Tomcat/JSP) which from memory wasn't that bad to setup, and I even remember trying a Perl variation where you inlined Perl code instead of PHP, but the name eludes me right now. I guess PHP just had that first mover advantage. Don't forget that a lot of the simplicity is because your average shared hosting provider has already installed it for you.