I think I can shed light on what being a "DSL for the web" means.
1. PHP has built-in templating in that it's a language that gets embedded within other text files. If you go with PHP, you don't have to decide how you're going to output your content into your front-end design. So, PHP (as a language) has made the decision on templating much in the way that frameworks like Rails and Django make that decision for Ruby and Python. And it's possible to override that decision in any of those frameworks and even PHP has alternative templating engines, but it provides a built-in default decision.
2. PHP puts many useful things into global variables. One can debate the merits of this (and I'm not here to do that), but when you're new to things and can be told "anything in that form will be available in $_REQUEST['var_name']," that can get you off the ground fast - much in the same way that params[:var_name] does in Rails.
3. PHP provides built-in "routing". Heck, it's files on your filesystem. You know how a static site works? Great! You know how PHP works (in terms of routing) as well. I appreciate having reversible routers, but one can see how PHP's approach is simple, especially for new users who might have experience with static sites.
I could go on, but it would basically be re-stating the same concept. PHP as a language includes many micro-framework features in the language itself and they're usually implemented in a simple way (even if one argues that it's not an ideal way for long-term maintainability). It gets people off the ground running fast and because its micro-framework-like capabilities are widely used, it's easy to google for information.
I don't program in PHP much, but I can understand why it could be called a "DSL for the web". It has many of the things that users grab a framework to handle built into the language. I personally much prefer to work on a site in a framework in Python, Ruby, C#, or Java, but PHP's thin layer of framework tools built into the language is very easy to understand and fast to learn.
1. PHP has built-in templating in that it's a language that gets embedded within other text files. If you go with PHP, you don't have to decide how you're going to output your content into your front-end design. So, PHP (as a language) has made the decision on templating much in the way that frameworks like Rails and Django make that decision for Ruby and Python. And it's possible to override that decision in any of those frameworks and even PHP has alternative templating engines, but it provides a built-in default decision.
2. PHP puts many useful things into global variables. One can debate the merits of this (and I'm not here to do that), but when you're new to things and can be told "anything in that form will be available in $_REQUEST['var_name']," that can get you off the ground fast - much in the same way that params[:var_name] does in Rails.
3. PHP provides built-in "routing". Heck, it's files on your filesystem. You know how a static site works? Great! You know how PHP works (in terms of routing) as well. I appreciate having reversible routers, but one can see how PHP's approach is simple, especially for new users who might have experience with static sites.
I could go on, but it would basically be re-stating the same concept. PHP as a language includes many micro-framework features in the language itself and they're usually implemented in a simple way (even if one argues that it's not an ideal way for long-term maintainability). It gets people off the ground running fast and because its micro-framework-like capabilities are widely used, it's easy to google for information.
I don't program in PHP much, but I can understand why it could be called a "DSL for the web". It has many of the things that users grab a framework to handle built into the language. I personally much prefer to work on a site in a framework in Python, Ruby, C#, or Java, but PHP's thin layer of framework tools built into the language is very easy to understand and fast to learn.