PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a popular server-side scripting language that is widely used for web development. It is open source, which means it is free to use and has a large community of developers contributing to its improvement.
By learning PHP, you can create dynamic and interactive web applications, manage databases efficiently, and leverage the extensive features and support provided by the PHP community. It is a powerful and flexible language that continues to be a popular choice for web development.
PHP (originally stood for "Personal Home Page") was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993. Initially, it was a simple set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) binaries written in C to track visits to his personal homepage. Over time, Lerdorf expanded PHP to include more functionalities, such as database interaction, and released it publicly in June 1995.
In September 1995, Lerdorf renamed PHP to "Personal Home Page Construction Kit" and added more advanced scripting features. By October 1995, he released a complete rewrite of the code, bringing back the PHP name. In April 1996, combining elements from previous versions, Lerdorf introduced PHP/FI 2.0, which included support for various databases, cookies, and user-defined functions.
PHP continued to evolve, and in 1997, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski rewrote the core to create the Zend Engine, which became the foundation for PHP 3. PHP 4 followed in 2000, introducing new features and improved performance. PHP 5, released in 2004, brought object-oriented programming capabilities and further enhancements.
The most recent versions, PHP 7 and PHP 8, introduced significant performance improvements and new features, such as just-in-time (JIT) compilation in PHP 8. Today, PHP is one of the most widely-used server-side scripting languages, powering many popular websites and applications.