I can probably write a similar site in any dynamic (dynamic enough) language in 100 to 200 lines. It's the mentality, not the language... although the language you use may form your mentality, too, of course.
This sounds like the beginning of a new type of "computer language shootout." Somebody:
1) Defines an application, all apps have to spit out the same HTML (or roughly the same.)
2) Solicits codes from a number of different languages/frameworks.
3) Runs the code on a web server, beats on it & measures performance.
4) Reports.
This is a lot of work, and I can see why it's never happened before, but I imagine it would be useful.
