PHP is a scripting programming language. The code interpretation and its operation is done on the server side. It supports object-oriented application execution techniques. It was created by Danish-Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf. It was intended to facilitate the creation of dynamic web pages. Later it became open source software with a BSD-style license. The ability to work with various types of web servers and database engines contributed to the development of this technology and its popularity.

How was the PHP language created?

The beginnings of PHP language date back to 1994. At that time, a set of Perl scripts was created, which was supposed to monitor Internet users, who found themselves on his website. As the traffic on the website was increasing all the time, Rasmus Lerdorf rewrote the scripts in C language. After some time, he made the source code he invented available. The next step was to link the project to the "Form Interpreter" tool. This is considered to be the beginning of the PHP language. In the following years, the number of users steadily increased and in 1997 it reached 50 thousand worldwide. Due to further development, a group of programmers was formed, who worked on PHP based on the principles of Open Source software. In the same year, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski also started working on the project. 

Two years later they rewrote the existing code from scratch and gave it a new architecture. It was called PHP 3.0 and is now considered one of the foundations of object-oriented programming. Further development led to the creation of PHP 4, the Zend Engine. It had a huge impact on the development of the entire language. Since its creation PHP has been systematically developed and improved. The modules existing before it have been largely rebuilt and improved. Also, new ones were created and developed with the object oriented programming model. Currently, the whole project is supervised by the Zend Technologies company.

What impact did it have on the development of the Internet, websites and web applications?

According to estimates PHP is currently used on about 75 percent of Internet domains. Its code in OpenSource technology allows for easy and free use by people from all over the world.  The software can be quickly tested by writing your own script. It also works very well when managing large data sets. The user sees only the result of the operation, so sensitive data is not shared.

Current position of PHP among other web technologies

In the initial years, PHP was used to help create dynamic websites. Nowadays, it can be found in many places, ranging from simple websites, games and also in complex applications of large companies. PHP can also be used to develop web applications for many operating systems and networks. It is used by WordPress, Wikipedia or Facebook.

Does PHP have a future in the era of growing popularity of JavaScript?

Client-side scripts are the most popular additions to HTML today. Support for them is realized by web browsers. It is on them that the functionality of the page depends. Depending on the version there may be differences in interpreting the code. Some users and browsers disable scripts for security reasons. This leads to a situation where the code cannot be executed correctly. One of the biggest advantages, on the other hand, is the speed of JavaScript. The latency of the Internet connection does not affect the performance of the script. PHP scripts on the other hand are executed on the server side. The user receives ready-made data. In the case of a slow Internet connection or a weak server, the delay will be noticeable here. Each run of the script loads the server. With a large number of users this can be very problematic. The advantage of PHP is the fact that the source code is not available to the user. Additionally, no matter what software he has, the functionality will always remain the same. The best solution seems to be combining both scripts in a smart way.