Rasmus Lerdorf (born 1968) is a Danish-Canadian programmer who created PHP. What started as simple tools for his personal homepage grew into the most widely used server-side scripting language on the web.
Creating PHP
In 1994, Lerdorf wrote some C programs to track visits to his online resume. He released these “Personal Home Page Tools” publicly. Other developers contributed, and PHP evolved from a simple toolset into a full programming language.
Pragmatic Philosophy
Lerdorf has described PHP’s development as organic and practical rather than designed:
“I don’t know how to stop it. There was never any intent to write a programming language.”
This pragmatic approach—solving immediate problems without grand architectural plans—characterized PHP’s evolution.
Evolution
Though Lerdorf created PHP, he didn’t develop it alone:
- Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewrote the parser for PHP 3
- They created the Zend Engine for PHP 4 and beyond
- A large community contributed to subsequent versions
Impact
PHP’s accessibility changed web development:
- Lowered barriers for creating dynamic websites
- Enabled the blogging revolution through WordPress
- Proved that “good enough” could transform an industry
- Showed that organic language growth was viable
Continued Involvement
Lerdorf worked at Yahoo and later Etsy, contributing to PHP’s optimization and real-world deployment. He remains an advocate for practical, pragmatic programming.