Research Documentation 01-php-history
Who and Why
In 1993, a man named Rasmus Lerdorf wanted to create a personal tool that could track visits to his online resume. At first, this was only supposed to be for his own personal use, which is why PHP was originally called Personal Home Page. However, PHP later grew in popularity and Rasmus released its source code to the public in 1995.
PHP Environment
PHP is a server-side programming language, which means that it needs to be run on a server that supports PHP, like Apache or Nginx. This can be done through a web host, or with a local server, through tools like XAMPP or MAMP. You will also need a database system like MySQL or MariaDB.
Usage of PHP on the Internet
PHP is what drives the largest Content Management Systems in the world like Wordpress and Drupal. Currently it is used in some capacity by over 75% of all websites. It is still the most popular server-side language on the web.
Summary
Over the last 3 decades, PHP has evolved into one of the most popular languages for web development, especially in the world of CMSs. For any web application that needs to work with a database, PHP is a valid option.