Not sure if it was the first, but PHP still beats a lot of other "platforms/framework" because thats what some of these items on the list are in terms of ease of embedding code directly into what you see what you get frontend code (HTML). It inserts backend code into HTML like javascript and that was very convenient and easy to learn, still easier than figuring out some of these platforms different templating shortcodes, that and its constant development and community support. I used to live on the PHP docs comments.... it was a great community.