← Back to glossary

PHP 3 — Birth of the Language (Rasmus Lerdorf)

php PHP 3.0+ Beginner

TL;DR

PHP 3 (1997) was the first version called 'PHP' — a complete rewrite by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans that transformed Rasmus Lerdorf's Personal Home Page tools into a proper language.

Explanation

PHP started as 'Personal Home Page Tools' (PHP/FI) by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 — simple C scripts to track website visitors. PHP 3 (1997) was a complete rewrite by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans (Tel Aviv University students), renaming it 'PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor'. Key additions: object support (basic), a more consistent function library, database abstraction, and the name change to PHP. The language was simple, procedural, and embedded directly in HTML. About 10% of all web servers ran PHP 3 at its peak. This rewrite established the open-source PHP we know today.

Common Misconception

✗ Rasmus Lerdorf wrote the version of PHP that became popular — he wrote the original C scripts, but PHP 3 (the foundation of modern PHP) was rewritten by Suraski and Gutmans.

Why It Matters

Understanding PHP's origins explains its design decisions — HTML embedding, loose typing, and function naming inconsistencies all trace back to its scripting tool origins.

Common Mistakes

Thinking PHP was designed as a serious language — it evolved organically from CGI scripts.

Code Examples

✗ Vulnerable

<!-- PHP 3 style — HTML with embedded code, no OOP, global functions -->
<?php
$result = mysql_query('SELECT * FROM users');
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    echo $row['name'] . '<br>';
}

✓ Fixed

// Modern PHP equivalent:
$users = $pdo->query('SELECT * FROM users')->fetchAll();
foreach ($users as $user) {
    echo htmlspecialchars($user['name']) . PHP_EOL;
}

References

↗ https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php