In 1994, a curious coder named Rasmus Lerdorf had a problem. He needed a way to track visits to his online résumé. Nothing fancy—just a simple counter. So he wrote a few Perl scripts and called them “Personal Home Page Tools.” That humble name would later echo through the halls of web development history.
Rasmus wasn’t trying to build a programming language. He was just solving his own problem. But as more people asked for his tools, he rewrote them in C, added some database hooks, and released them to the public. Suddenly, developers everywhere were using PHP to build dynamic websites—without needing to master complex languages like C++ or Java.
PHP grew organically, like a garage band that accidentally went viral. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t perfect. But it was fast, flexible, and wildly accessible. Anyone with a text editor and a dream could build something real.
By the late ’90s, PHP had evolved into a full-fledged scripting language. It powered forums, blogs, and e-commerce sites. It became the backbone of platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. And all because one developer wanted to count résumé views.
Today, PHP runs on millions of servers and powers a huge chunk of the internet. Its origin story isn’t about genius or grand vision—it’s about practicality, community, and the magic of open-source collaboration.
So next time you echo “Hello, world” in PHP, remember: it all started with a résumé and a counter.
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