PHP, the general-purpose programming language with cute mascot, is one of the most widely used languages on the web and today it turns 24.
Happy B-day, PHP!
We used the occasion to talk to one of our PHP masters Stiliyan Kolev and find out more about his experience with the language and how he sees its evolution over the years.
When did you start using the PHP?
My first experience with PHP was way back when I was in 9th grade. It did not take long to get hooked into programming and make it a full-time job.
What was the first thing you built in PHP?
Wow, that’s a real memory teaser :) Well, I do not remember exactly what was the first one, but I do remember my first commercial project, which was a web-based system to manage a production line for windows (regular glass windows :)).
In your opinion how has Php evolved over the years?
Incredibly fast! That’s the only way I would define it. Back when I started learning it, PHP had some huge architectural flaws which provoked bad practices and respectively a lot of spaghetti code was produced: good examples are the well-known CMS systems like Joomla and Drupal.
However, since then the PHP team invested a huge amount of time and efforts in cleaning all those up and now you definitely can write clean code. Also, with the latest version 7 and the upcoming 8 (including JIT) performance was remarkably improved (3/4 times, compared to PHP 5). Not only that, tooling was also notably enhanced, good practices were imposed and probably the most important – the significant growth of the PHP community that constantly contributes to the further development of the language.
What are the main advantages of the language?
PHP is best suited for the Web. What I like about it, is that it’s easily digestible even by beginners. Also, PHP is used by 79.0% of all websites (source: www.w3techs.com). Its popularity brings a lot of useful resources and you could always find help from the community.
Furthermore, with the recent performance boost, PHP team made the language a suitable candidate for much bigger and more loaded systems.
Are you a PHP master as well? And do you seek new challenges and exciting projects to work on and make an impact? Check out our career opportunities and join one of our incredible teams.