[9rx]

Newbies want a compelling catchphrase:

C: So powerful you can shoot your foot off!

Rust: Now that you've shot your foot off, let's not do that a second time.

Javascript: It runs on the server and in the browser.

Typescript: It runs on the server and in the browser, now with types!

In contrast,

PHP: Not sure if I want to be a templating language or general-purpose programming language.

[jimbokun]

PHP is: see your changes by refreshing your browser. At least that was it’s initial appeal.

[9rx]

Not the ability to mix SQL injection vulnerabilities into the middle of your HTML?

Regardless, you’re thinking of Perl/CGI. PHP did attract the Perl crowd away from Perl, but it wasn’t for that reason. That was already the norm.