PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor, has become one of the most widely used programming languages in the world, powering over 70% of all websites on the internet. But its journey to this level of success was not an easy one. It all began in 1994, when Rasmus Lerdorf, a Danish-Canadian programmer, created a set of scripts to track visits to his personal webpage. He called it “Personal Home Page Tools” or PHP Tools for short. This simple set of scripts was written in the programming language C, and it allowed Lerdorf to easily monitor and manage his webpage. He soon released it to the public, and it quickly gained popularity among web developers.
The next major milestone in the history of PHP came in 1995, when two Israeli developers, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, rewrote the codebase of PHP Tools and released it as “Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter” or PHP/FI. This new version added support for form handling and database access, making it more powerful and versatile. However, it was still limited to only a few web servers and operating systems.
In 1997, Gutmans and Suraski decided to completely rewrite PHP/FI, making it more stable, scalable, and compatible. The result was PHP 3, which was released in 1998. This version was a major improvement, with better performance and support for more platforms. It also introduced the concept of “server-side scripting”, which allowed web developers to embed code within HTML pages, making their websites more dynamic and interactive.
The next version, PHP 4, was released in 2000 and brought significant improvements in terms of speed and stability. It also introduced new features like object-oriented programming, making PHP a more powerful language for building complex web applications. This version solidified PHP’s position as one of the leading web development languages.
In 2004, PHP 5 was released, adding even more advanced features like support for XML and improved error handling. It also introduced the Zend Engine, a high-performance scripting engine that greatly improved the speed and efficiency of PHP.
The most recent major release of PHP, version 7, came out in 2015 and brought significant performance improvements, making PHP even faster and more efficient. It also introduced new features like scalar type declarations and anonymous classes, making it more modern and in line with other programming languages.
Today, PHP is used by millions of web developers around the world to build all kinds of websites and applications. Its popularity can be attributed to its ease of use, versatility, and constant evolution. From its humble beginnings as a simple set of scripts for personal websites to a powerful programming language that powers the majority of the internet, PHP has truly come a long way. And with the upcoming release of PHP 8, it is clear that its journey is far from over.
