I was able to do this with erb (ruby templating language) very similarly to php scripts eons ago. It just never caught on to do it that way for other languages

I was able to do this with erb (ruby templating language) very similarly to php scripts eons ago. It just never caught on to do it that way for other languages because php already had that market sewn up. This isn't disagreeing with you, just saying that it is this way for cultural rather than technical reasons.