> Why? PHP was designed from the start to be a web-first language that solved the issues people had using Perl as a server-side scripting language. I think ex

> Why? PHP was designed from the start to be a web-first language that solved the issues people had using Perl as a server-side scripting language. I think experiencing the pain points people were having trying to repurposed other languages for the web lead to a lot of good* design decisions. * Good, in the sense of ease of use. It also didn't really give you many options in the beginning: everyone just used the LAMP stack and made it work. You could use Windows or Postgres, but you just didn't without a compelling reason. Nobody today wants to design a single-purpose language that locks users into a platform. Users don't want to learn a single-purpose language and be locked into a platform.