Let’s talk about what php is? On the past and present life of php

##(php mascot-elephant)

What is php?

PHP (foreign name: PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, Chinese name: "Hypertext Preprocessor") is a general open source scripting language. The syntax absorbs the characteristics of C language, Java and Perl, which is easy to learn and widely used. It is mainly suitable for the field of Web development. PHP's unique syntax mixes C, Java, Perl, and PHP's own syntax. It can execute dynamic web pages faster than CGI or Perl. Compared with other programming languages, dynamic pages made with PHP embed programs into HTML (an application under the Standard Universal Markup Language) document for execution, and the execution efficiency is much higher than CGI that completely generates HTML tags; PHP can also execute compiled code. Compilation can achieve encryption and optimize code running, making the code run faster.

##php’s previous life

PHP1

PHP originally emerged as a fast, practical toolkit. In 1994, in order to add a small and practical visitor tracking system to his website, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote a prototype of PHP. This is a simple tool wrapped in Perl. Because the results were not satisfactory, Rasmus rewrote the tool in C language.

Later, more people noticed this lightweight and simple program and asked for more features. Rasmus decided to release a complete version, naming it Personal Home Page Tools. Later, Rasmus released a tool called FI that can perform SQL queries.

PHP2

In 1996, Rasmus released PHP/FI2.0, which is a basically complete PHP package. Not only can it access databases, but it can also be embedded in HTML pages. At this time, PHP/FI2.0 attracted a large number of program developers. Among the many programmers were Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, who were later the founders of PHP3. Not satisfied with PHP/FI's performance in large projects, Zeev and Andi made significant improvements.

PHP3

At the end of 1998, the first official version of PHP3 was released, which featured better execution and a clearer structure. In addition, the powerful function of PHP3 lies in its scalability. In addition to providing end users with the infrastructure of databases, protocols, and APIs, its extensibility has attracted a large number of developers to join and submit new modules.

This brand new language is released with a new name. This name has a broader meaning than just the concept of "personal homepage tool". It is named with the simple abbreviation "PHP". This is a recursive abbreviation, and its full name is - PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

Soon, Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans invested in the development of new PHP. The design goal is to enhance program running performance and the modularity of PHP's own code.

PHP4

The new PHP core was called the "Zend" (named after Zeev and Andi) engine and was released in May 2000 with the new version of PHP 4.0. The performance of PHP4 has been significantly improved compared to PHP3. When the same script is run in PHP4, the performance can be improved by nearly 10 times. And the script optimizer provided by Zend can convert the source program into binary compiled code, which not only improves performance, but also protects the program source code from being exposed.

In PHP4, support for various web servers (such as Apache, IIS/PWS, OmniHTTPd, etc.) has been added. In addition, PHP4 also adds some new language features, such as rich array operation functions, complete session mechanism, support for output caching, etc. PHP4 also provides extended support for some cross-platform technologies, such as support for Adobe PDF, SWF, Java, Microsoft.NET and other technologies.

PHP4 also adds support for class objects. Although PHP4 is not perfect in this regard, it still greatly improves its support for object-oriented programming. The Pear library (PHP Extension and Application Repository) in PHP4 is the best example of object-oriented application and practice.

PHP5

Although PHP4 has developed so rapidly, it still lacks some key features compared to other popular development languages. For example, the object-oriented functions in PHP4 are not perfect, and it cannot capture and handle exceptions. Therefore, there are still difficulties in dealing with some special issues.

In July 2004, the release of the official version of PHP5 marked the arrival of a new PHP era. At its core is the second-generation Zend engine, which introduces support for the new PECL module. The biggest feature of PHP5 is that it introduces all object-oriented mechanisms and retains downward compatibility. Programmers no longer have to write classes that lack functionality and can implement class protection in a variety of ways. In addition, there are no longer problems with object integration. Using PHP5 introduces type hints and exception handling mechanisms, which can handle and avoid errors more effectively.

php now

##PHP7

In January 2016, the official version of PHP 7.0.2 was released. In the past few years, PHP has been the fourth most popular programming language, driving more than 200 million websites around the world, and more than 81.7% of the world's public websites are on the server. The client uses PHP. PHP takes its biggest leap since 2004 this week, as PHP 7 has been released. The biggest feature of PHP 7 is its greatly improved performance. In some WordPress benchmark tests, the performance can reach 3 times that of PHP 5.6.

PHP 7 has other smaller improvements, such as significantly reducing memory usage, adding return type declarations, and more. PHP 7 includes some major security improvements, such as removing PHP safe mode, adding magic quotes, having some new reserved keywords, and more.

The future of php

The version of php7 is currently undergoing stable changes. I believe that more and more developers will upgrade their projects to php7, and more and more developers will choose php as their development language. I sincerely hope that PHP can truly become the best language in the world.

Extra Chapter

What language should I learn when I first start web development?

PHP, Python and Ruby are all suitable for WEB development. For beginners in web development, the biggest question is which programming language to learn is more suitable for future career development and has more prospects. To choose a language that suits you, you must first consider the advantages and disadvantages of php, python and ruby, and how long their learning cycles are. Many people are more concerned about "Which one is easier to learn, Python or PHP", and "Which one is better, Ruby or Python?". There are also many articles on the Internet, such as "PHP is dead", "PHP learning curve", "How to make good use of Python", etc. You can read more.

If you are new to web development, which one should you learn between php, python and ruby?

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How long does it take to learn php from beginner to master Getting started with PHP is much easier than other languages. Basically, after two or three months of learning, you can create a simple PHP-based website. Of course, this is an average. For more details, please see

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