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PHP: The Toyota Corolla of programming

In 1995, an otherwise unknown software developer released the first version of a new scripting language whose explicit aim was to make applications for this new platform called "The World Wide Web". After starting as a small project, and thanks to the crazy dot-com years, it grew dramatically to become one of the most widely used programming languages of all time. After some stumbling first steps, it eventually got some sort of standardization in 1997, even reluctantly including some OOP features to please community and pundits alike.

In 1995, an otherwise unknown software developer released the first version of a new scripting language whose explicit aim was to make applications for this new platform called “The World Wide Web”. However, no matter how hard it tried, this language and its users were mocked for decades by so-called “serious” programmers, who derided its “WTF”-level syntax, the quirks of its runtime model, its ever-increasing amount of security issues, or the gazillion frameworks that sprang around it. It is only fair to state my mea culpa: back in 2009 I participated in a (admittedly useless) community effort called “I Hate PHP” (of which the Internet Archive has duly kept a copy) where my name appeared prominently on the front page.

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