Often the problem being solved by this sort of thing isn't directly about making it easier to work with a language, but making it easier to hire developers. The hiring pool for developers who are very good with PHP is much much larger than a lot of other languages simply by virtue of it being an easy language to get started with.
This is also why Facebook has spent so much time and effort on things like HHVM and Hack.
This is also why Facebook has spent so much time and effort on things like HHVM and Hack.