Chapter 1. Introduction to PHP
PHP hasn't always been around, so what came before it? More importantly, why was PHP created in the first place? In this chapter, we'll look at the history behind PHP, where it has advantages over other programming languages, and where you can get help to further your PHP programming career.
PHP History
Contrary to what some might have you believe, there was a lot of activity on the web development front before PHP was invented. Prior to its invention, code for server-side scripting was usually written in C or Perl, both of which are general programming languages that were adapted to use on the Internet.
The original PHP release was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in June 1995, to make various common web programming tasks easier and less repetitive. The name originally stood for "Personal Home Page," but has since become a recursive acronym, standing for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor." The goal of that release was to minimize the amount of code required to achieve results, which led to PHP being HTML-centric—that is, PHP code was embedded inside HTML.
The second PHP release, known as PHP/FI 2.0, was the first to achieve widespread popularity, and despite the parsing inconsistencies, it managed to attract a few converts.
The release of PHP 3 was largely driven by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, who rewrote PHP from the ground up and removed the parsing problems. PHP 3 also made it much easier for others to extend the language—particularly keen developers could now ...