PHP, also known as Hypertext Preprocessor, is a server-side scripting language that has become an integral part of web development. Originally created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, PHP was designed to help Lerdorf maintain his personal website. However, it quickly gained popularity and evolved into the widely used language that it is today. In 1997, two developers, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, rewrote the codebase and released PHP 3, adding support for dynamic web pages and improved flexibility. This marked the beginning of PHP’s dominance in the web development world.
In the early 2000s, PHP continued to grow in popularity, largely due to the rise of popular content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, which were all built on PHP. The release of PHP 4 in 2000 brought even more improvements, such as better object-oriented programming support and enhanced performance. However, it was not until the release of PHP 5 in 2004 that the language truly began to mature. This version introduced a new and improved engine, Zend Engine 2, which greatly improved PHP’s speed and performance.
As PHP continued to evolve, it also faced competition from other web development languages such as Java, Python, and Ruby on Rails. To stay ahead, the developers of PHP made significant updates and improvements to the language. In 2012, PHP 5.4 was released, introducing traits, a new type of code reuse mechanism, and a built-in web server for local development. This was followed by the release of PHP 5.5 in 2013, which brought improved security features and support for generators, a new way of writing loops in PHP.
In 2014, PHP 5.6 was released, introducing performance improvements and a new built-in debugger. This version also marked the end of support for the old PHP 5.x branch and the beginning of the transition to PHP 7. In 2015, PHP 7 was released, bringing major changes and improvements to the language, including improved performance, new features such as anonymous classes and return type declarations, and better error handling. PHP 7 also marked the merging of the PHP and Zend engines, resulting in a more unified and efficient codebase.
Today, PHP is used by over 79% of all websites, making it the most popular web development language in the world. Its evolution and continuous improvements have made it a powerful and versatile language, capable of handling complex web applications and websites. With the release of PHP 8 in late 2020, which promises even more performance improvements and new features, it is clear that PHP will continue to play a crucial role in the world of web development for years to come.
