PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor, has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a personal project created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. It was initially designed to be a simple scripting tool for managing his personal website, but as it gained popularity, it evolved into a full-fledged programming language for web development. In the late 1990s, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski rewrote the core of PHP, adding features like object-oriented programming, which significantly improved its functionality and made it more suitable for large-scale projects. With the release of PHP 4 in 2000, the language became more stable and efficient, making it a popular choice for web developers. However, it wasn’t until the arrival of PHP 5 in 2004 that the language truly took off. This version introduced a multitude of new features, including improved error handling, better support for object-oriented programming, and the introduction of the Zend Engine, which greatly enhanced the performance of PHP. As a result, PHP became one of the most widely used languages for web development, powering popular websites like Facebook, Wikipedia, and WordPress. But the evolution of PHP didn’t stop there. In 2014, PHP 7 was released, bringing with it even more improvements in performance and security. With its new Zend Engine 3.0, PHP 7 was able to handle twice as many requests per second as its predecessor. Additionally, it introduced new features like scalar type declarations and return type declarations, further enhancing its capabilities as a modern programming language. Today, PHP continues to evolve and adapt to the ever-changing landscape of web development. Its community-driven development and open-source nature have allowed it to continuously improve and remain a leading language for building dynamic and robust websites. From a small personal project to a powerful and widely-used language, the evolution of PHP is a testament to its versatility and adaptability in the world of web development.