How PHP Became the Backbone of the Internet
From humble beginnings, PHP has become dominant across the internet and is the backbone of many sites today. It is used in the development of more than 77.5% of sites online, a number that is constantly increasing as new sites are launched.
If you’re interested in how a humble programming language has gained dominance in cyberspace, keep reading as we examine its origins, evolution, and popularity.
Analytics for the Masses
Surprisingly, PHP did not begin life as a programming language or with the idea of becoming a powerful force online. Instead, it was created in 1994 as a set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) binaries that had a singular purpose.
Written in the C language, the binaries were coded by Rasmus Lerdorf to track the number of people visiting and viewing his online resume. Realizing he had made something unique, Lerdorf gave the script the name PHP Tools, which stood for Personal Home Page Tools—a nod toward the personal application for which it was created.
Public Interest and Development
A year after writing the first version of PHP, Lerdorf continued developing the language, adding new features and capabilities. Included in these was support for online forms, Structured Query Language (SQL), and database interactions.
Lerdorf dubbed the new changes PHP/FI (form interpreter) and released it to the public. At the time, it attracted many programmers due to its variables, which were similar to Perl, and the unique way it operated on sites.
In 1997, PHP took its next significant leap forward, this time not at the hands of Lerdorf but rather at the hands of developers Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, who rewrote the PHP/FI parser and improved code structure and performance. Their work laid the base for PHP 3, which was released a year later.
When PHP 3 was released, it heralded the official change of the acronym from Personal Home Page Tools to PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. This was done because the language had evolved from a home-based invention to something increasingly used in developing new websites.
Alongside a new acronym meaning, PHP 3 brought an entirely new parser, support for extensions through API, and new object-oriented support. All this helped increase the language’s capabilities and worked to standardize it more.
The Unstoppable Growth of PHP
Many new websites quickly adopted PHP 3. The boom in internet usage around the late 1990s bolstered its growth significantly. This continued into the early 2000s, accelerated further by the release of PHP 4 in 2000.
Released with output buffering and the ability to record sessions, PHP 4 was powered by the new Zend Engine 1.0. This engine gave the language new features and significantly boosted performance.
This improved performance made the language the natural choice for one of the largest web-building platforms in the world: WordPress. Released in 2003, WordPress used PHP and MySQL to help users quickly and easily create extensive websites that were easy to update and build, even for novice programmers.
PHP underwent another major change in 2004, just one year after becoming popular due to WordPress sites. Released with an entirely new engine, Zend Engine II, PHP 5 focused on providing more user-friendly interfaces, object-orientated programming, and exceptions.
PHP 5 continued to be used in large-scale websites, including platforms like Facebook until it was eventually replaced by PHP 5.3 in 2009. Further versions, PHP 5.4 (2012), PHP 7 (2015), PHP 8 (2020), and PHP 8.2 (2022), have continued to help the language evolve and become even more powerful, user-friendly, and popular.
Why PHP Has Remained King
Although PHP’s success can be traced back to the release of new versions that added new features and the language’s use by popular websites, distinct advantages to using the code have also bolstered it.
Cost
One of the most prominent factors that have made PHP popular among developers is its cost-effectiveness. Because PHP is entirely open-source and has been since its public release in 1995, using the language avoids paying excessive license fees.
This has made it particularly popular among smaller businesses that don’t have major budgets for web development and home users who want to run a blog or personal website without investing too much. Its free use has also attracted the interest of larger companies that simply want to achieve a strong web presence without unnecessary costs.
Development Ease
Aside from cost, PHP is known for its simplicity and its ability to develop web applications quickly. Aided by numerous frameworks, this has made the language popular among developers who need to produce new web items quickly.
The language is also straightforward to learn, being loosely based on C and Perl. This foundation has made it easy for new and experienced programmers to learn the code and significantly boosted its adoption into the existing web development sector.
Scalability
Although early versions of PHP were slightly burdened when dealing with high traffic numbers, the release of PHP 7, powered by Zend Engine 3, made the language incredibly powerful. This has made the language capable of allowing websites to scale easily without concern about whether complex web applications and increased traffic will slow things down.
Power
Since PHP 7, the language has been incredibly powerful and able to handle large web queries with relative ease. This powerful processing has attracted many developers who need to program extensive web solutions.
Flexibility
As the popular coding language has evolved, support for multiple operating systems and database types, such as MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL, has been added. This wide range of support has made the language incredibly flexible and allows programmers to use varied development stacks when creating websites.
Conclusion
There is no denying that PHP revolutionized the internet. Used in everything from massive websites like Wikipedia and Etsy to social media like Facebook, the language has become unstoppable. Even industries like iGaming advertising that social casinos online don’t require real money have strong foundations in using the PHP language to help sites perform better.
With an extensive community constantly working to improve it, PHP will undoubtedly remain the backbone of the internet long into the future. And its ever-growing benefits and features can only lead to a better web experience for all.