PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor, has come a long way since its inception in 1994 as a personal project by Rasmus Lerdorf. Originally designed as a set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts to track visits to Lerdorf’s online resume, PHP quickly gained popularity and evolved into a powerful programming language. In 1997, two developers, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, rewrote the core of PHP and introduced the Zend Engine, which allowed for better performance and a more modular approach to coding. This marked the beginning of PHP’s growth as a server-side scripting language, powering dynamic and interactive web pages. With the release of PHP 4 in 2000, the language became object-oriented, making it easier for developers to create complex and scalable applications. The next major release, PHP 5, introduced several new features such as improved error handling, better support for XML, and the addition of the SQLite database engine. These updates continued with PHP 7, released in 2015, which brought significant performance improvements, making it a viable option for large-scale applications. In addition, PHP 7 also introduced new features like the Spaceship operator and strict typing, further enhancing the language’s capabilities. Today, PHP is the backbone of popular content management systems like WordPress and Drupal, and it continues to evolve with each new version. With a large and active community of developers, PHP remains a popular choice for web development due to its ease of use, flexibility, and wide range of libraries and frameworks. From a simple personal project to a widely-used language powering millions of websites, the evolution of PHP is a testament to its enduring relevance and impact in the world of programming.