Putting HTML inside of scripted code blocks was legendary back in the day and every web-oriented language did it. I guess people have already forgotten about ASP and ColdFusion. Being able to for each an array into table rows? Game changing.
I have been coding in coldfusion (openbluedragon) on 2012. Still lurks in my dreams. I refactored to components (objects) some functionalities as a POC, it did not fit well with the main programmer.