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Web Technologies-I

Notes This was the first time the term “scripting language” was used. PHP 1’s simplistic tag-replacement
code was replaced with a parser that could handle a more sophisticated embedded tag language.
By today’s standards, the tag language was not particularly sophisticated, but compared to
PHP 1 it certainly was.
The main reason for this change was that few people who used PHP 1 were actually interested
in using the C-based framework for creating add-ons. Most users were much more interested
in being able to embed logic directly in their web pages for creating conditional HTML, custom
tags, and other such features. PHP 1 users were constantly requesting the ability to add the
hit-tracking footer or send different HTML blocks conditionally. This led to the creation of an if
tag. Once you have if, you need else as well. And from there, it is a slippery slope to the point
where, whether you want to or not, you end up writing an entire scripting language.

By mid-1997, PHP Version 2 had grown quite a bit and had attracted a lot of users, but there were
still some stability problems with the underlying parsing engine. The project was also still mostly
a one-man effort, with a few contributions here and there. At this point, Zeev Suraski and Andi
Gutmans in Tel Aviv volunteered to rewrite the underlying parsing engine, and we agreed to
make their rewrite the base for PHP Version 3. Other people also volunteered to work on other
parts of PHP, and the project changed from a one-person effort with a few contributors to a true
open source project with many developers around the world.
On June 6, 1998 the PHP Development Team announced the release of PHP 3.0, the latest release
of the server-side scripting solution already in use on over 70,000 World Wide Websites. This all-
new version of the popular scripting language includes support for all major operating systems
(Windows 95/NT, most versions of Unix, and Macintosh) and web servers (including Apache,
Netscape servers, WebSite Pro, and Microsoft Internet Information Server). PHP 3.0 also supports
a wide range of databases, including Oracle, Sybase, Solid, MySQ, mSQL, and PostgreSQL, as
well as ODBC data sources. New features include persistent database connections, support for
the SNMP and IMAP protocols, and a revamped C API for extending the language with new
features. “PHP is a very programmer-friendly scripting language suitable for people with little
or no programming experience as well as the seasoned web developer who needs to get things
done quickly. The best thing about PHP is that you get results quickly,” said Rasmus Lerdorf,
one of the developers of the language. “Version 3 provides a much more powerful, reliable and
efficient implementation of the language, while maintaining the ease of use and rapid development
that were the key to PHP’s success in the past”, added Andi Gutmans, one of the implementers
of the new language core. “At Circle Net we have found PHP to be the most robust platform for
rapid web-based application development available today,” said Troy Cobb, Chief Technology
Officer at Circle Net, Inc. “Our use of PHP has cut our development time in half, and more than
doubled our client satisfaction. PHP has enabled us to provide database-driven dynamic solutions
which perform at phenomenal speeds.” The PHP Development Team is an international group
of programmers who lead the open development of PHP and related projects.
After the release of PHP 3, usage really started to take off. Version 4 was prompted by a number of
developers who were interested in making some fundamental changes to the architecture of PHP.
These changes included abstracting the layer between the language and the web server, adding
a thread-safety mechanism, and adding a more advanced, two-stage parse/execute tag-parsing
system. This new parser, primarily written by Zeev and Andi, was named the Zend engine. After
a lot of work by a lot of developers, PHP 4.0 was released on May 22, 2000.
Since that release, there have been a few minor releases of PHP 4, with the latest version as of
this writing being 4.1.1.

PHP 3.0 is available for free download in source form and binaries for several
platforms at http://www.php.net/.

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