[wpietri]

That was a big reason, but I think another key choice was that the output format (HTML) and the input format (PHP) could be pretty close. If you were 15 and wanting to make a dynamic webpage, you'd look at an existing web page, copy it, and change one bit. PHP made that easy. The next change and the change after that were easy too.

In contrast, competing technologies started out with, "OK, learn computer science. Now learn how HTTP works. And then learn CGI. And some Unix. And then you can do 'Hello, World.'"

The funny part for me is that a lot of us in the latter camp didn't learn computers that way at all. We started out with BASIC:

    10 PRINT "Onion2K is cool!"
    20 GOTO 10

It had the same immediacy as PHP. The ease of making something happen was what drew us in. But somehow we forgot that. While also saying, "Here's something that will touch everybody on the planet. Let's all use it!"