Video by Fallen Boardroom · Watch on YouTube ↗
About this video
Subscribe to the channel!!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsf3CdPzMBjoeEpTAb5Uvsw?sub_confirmation=1
Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, you support the channel at no additional cost to you.
Resources & Links
PHP elePHPant plush (the blue PHP elephant mascot, made since 2007)
🔍 eBay (Best Deals): https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=php+elephpant+plush&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339196185&toolid=10001&customid=fallenboardroom
In June 1995 Rasmus Lerdorf, a 26-year-old Dane born in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland, gave away Personal Home Page Tools, the little programs that logged visits to his online CV. This documentary follows PHP from a Usenet post to the Technion students Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, the Zend Engine and LAMP, then phpBB, Drupal, Moodle, Wikipedia and WordPress, co-founded with Stockport's Mike Little.
Then TheFacebook, built in PHP in 2004, HipHop, HHVM and Hack, the abandoned PHP 6, the PHP 7 comeback and the PHP Foundation. W3Techs now finds PHP on 69.4% of websites whose server language it knows. What was the first website you built, and in which year? Tell us in the comments.
00:00 June 1995: the CV that started PHP
01:45 Greenland, Denmark and King City
05:49 Personal Home Page Tools on Usenet
10:27 Two students in Haifa, PHP 3 and Zend
19:36 phpBB, Drupal, Moodle and the elePHPant
22:54 Wikipedia moves to PHP
25:33 WordPress and Mike Little from Stockport
30:02 TheFacebook, HipHop, HHVM and Hack
39:54 PHP 7, PHP 8 and the PHP Foundation
46:10 Seven in ten websites today
Sources:
PHP Manual — History of PHP — https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php
W3Techs — Usage statistics of PHP for websites — https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php
Meta for Developers — HipHop for PHP: Move Fast (Haiping Zhao, 2010) — https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2010/02/02/hiphop-for-php--move-fast/
Engineering at Meta — Hack: a new programming language for HHVM (2014) — https://engineering.fb.com/2014/03/20/developer-tools/hack-a-new-programming-language-for-hhvm/
MediaWiki — MediaWiki history — https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_history
Slack Engineering — Taking PHP Seriously (Keith Adams, 2016)
The Register — PHP Foundation formed to fund development of the language (2021)
Namecheap — The Complete History of WordPress
Wikiquote — Rasmus Lerdorf
Wikipedia — Mike Little
You can contact me at: thefallenboardroom@proton.me
This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsf3CdPzMBjoeEpTAb5Uvsw?sub_confirmation=1
Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, you support the channel at no additional cost to you.
Resources & Links
PHP elePHPant plush (the blue PHP elephant mascot, made since 2007)
🔍 eBay (Best Deals): https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=php+elephpant+plush&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339196185&toolid=10001&customid=fallenboardroom
In June 1995 Rasmus Lerdorf, a 26-year-old Dane born in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland, gave away Personal Home Page Tools, the little programs that logged visits to his online CV. This documentary follows PHP from a Usenet post to the Technion students Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, the Zend Engine and LAMP, then phpBB, Drupal, Moodle, Wikipedia and WordPress, co-founded with Stockport's Mike Little.
Then TheFacebook, built in PHP in 2004, HipHop, HHVM and Hack, the abandoned PHP 6, the PHP 7 comeback and the PHP Foundation. W3Techs now finds PHP on 69.4% of websites whose server language it knows. What was the first website you built, and in which year? Tell us in the comments.
00:00 June 1995: the CV that started PHP
01:45 Greenland, Denmark and King City
05:49 Personal Home Page Tools on Usenet
10:27 Two students in Haifa, PHP 3 and Zend
19:36 phpBB, Drupal, Moodle and the elePHPant
22:54 Wikipedia moves to PHP
25:33 WordPress and Mike Little from Stockport
30:02 TheFacebook, HipHop, HHVM and Hack
39:54 PHP 7, PHP 8 and the PHP Foundation
46:10 Seven in ten websites today
Sources:
PHP Manual — History of PHP — https://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php
W3Techs — Usage statistics of PHP for websites — https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php
Meta for Developers — HipHop for PHP: Move Fast (Haiping Zhao, 2010) — https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2010/02/02/hiphop-for-php--move-fast/
Engineering at Meta — Hack: a new programming language for HHVM (2014) — https://engineering.fb.com/2014/03/20/developer-tools/hack-a-new-programming-language-for-hhvm/
MediaWiki — MediaWiki history — https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_history
Slack Engineering — Taking PHP Seriously (Keith Adams, 2016)
The Register — PHP Foundation formed to fund development of the language (2021)
Namecheap — The Complete History of WordPress
Wikiquote — Rasmus Lerdorf
Wikipedia — Mike Little
You can contact me at: thefallenboardroom@proton.me
This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.
Explore the companies
Sources & further reading
Source notes are being assembled. See the company index for archival leads.