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.
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. Despite the backlash, this language and its community prevailed, eventually getting a huge second act, including some explicit support from Big Tech themselves. Nowadays, as the language reaches the glorious age of 30, a new project drives its future evolution thanks to the strengths of the Go programming language.
Interestingly enough, the description spread across the two paragraphs above fits not just one but two programming languages: on one side, PHP, heavily inspired by Perl and released by Rasmus Lerdorf in June 1995 with the name “Personal Home Page Tools”; and on the other hand JavaScript, designed by Brendan Eich and released December of that same year by Netscape.
But the parallels between both languages do not stop there. In 1997, they got both some level of standardization, thanks to PHP/FI 2 and ECMA-262. During the 2010s, each language got major support from Facebook on one side, and Google and Microsoft on the other side. And in 2025, they both got a major revamp effort based on the Go programming language: a new PHP runtime called FrankenPHP, and the recently announced TypeScript compiler.
PHP and JavaScript represent two faces of the same coin: web programming, both server-side and client-side. The growth of the World Wide Web transformed them into major players, despite their (let us be honest) quite jarring initial design flaws, their slow committee-based evolution, and the seemingly endless series of security flaws that plagued their respective ecosystems.
An oft-quoted smirk by Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++, states that
There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.
Two years ago we published an issue about BASIC, the programming language that all developers love to hate but which single-handedly defined a whole era in our industry. It is only fair that we dedicate some words to PHP, the one everyone also complains about, the one everyone laughs about, yet apparently powers between 70 and 80 percent of the world’s websites; needless to say, an impressive number, no matter how hard you look at it, and no matter how much “serious” programmers laugh about it.
Throughout history, programming languages have received interesting, if revealing, epithets. C is said to be “portable assembly”. Java is good for “write once, debug anywhere”. Python is usually referred to as “executable pseudocode”. JavaScript “was created in 10 days, and it shows”. Perl is the “duct tape of the Internet”.
And, well, PHP is either a “fractal of bad design” (seriously, people?) or an acronym meaning “Pretty Horrific Programming”. Ouch.
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