PHP

since unknown year (earliest usage recorded on this site was 1997)

Users

Technology Timeline Graph

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

vitaliyf

mpirnat

wilane

tmcw

kayakr

jjames

edd

carljm

acdha

shiny

eculver

tswicegood

bkmontgomery

twhitton

vvarp

arowla

MarkofCain

xurizaemon

jeffself

lambacck

jackboot7

deep

k_wade_a

davisagli

kratorius

westonruter

mattimck

dasil003

Kanru

sfaruque

paltman

CerealBoy

justinlilly

b3cft

jasonb

daddy

benjaminws

binarydud

sli

adurdin

coordt

streetcleaner

jcarbaugh

pydanny

mmai

RossP

mfandreas

xhae

stephen_mcd

honzakral

bkonkle

apostolos

nathans

sjaekel

metavida

szilveszter

pmclanahan

gnat

Bryan

robhudson

jonemo

dmpayton

vinilios

sbaydoun

anoop

lukeman

givas

eddymul

SeanOC

brousch

nnrcschmdt

mcaulay

passy

brosner

cpharmston

smalltobi

bob

jefftriplett

Zak

greyfade

ntoll

mikl

joe

banterability

patricktaylor

ghoseb

dabeaz

newman

bg4

adders

bitprophet

mathias

pedrovalente

notanumber

jacobian

asenchi

ShawnMilo

brettsky

barneyboo

drakkos

growe

NX172

jamesotron

karlstolley

davidpaccoud

sceptreofjudah

soryu2

adamcik

defrex

myles

bmaxwell

boutell

mwalling

Swizec

gunnarlium

bittercoder

audreyr

Kami

cloudssanswater

sdhamilton

shywolf9982

Rgoodermote

PaulM

mrtrosen

trey

koichirose

louisr

krisse2

zeroaltitude

stringfellow

osiixy

Vector

daniellindsley

eykd

mdridley

lcf

floyd

mjhagen

seanbrant

b3ng0

ellisonleao

adambrenecki

sebleier

alexsuraci

Matt

bkopanja

Josh

ptone

Indy

gnubardt

fourplusone

leveille

mowens

nsmgr8

brutasse

nullomodo

msnaith

collypops

rizumu

MichaelTran

ch0llima

newmaniese

Shane

r1chardj0n3s

Raisapius

dan

sanchom

dublindan

chrisbrett665

CrociDB

d3f3nd3r

reed

bseanvt

MechanisM

nightfly19

AndyC

moriogawa

joshontheweb

alex

Chirs

Sitwon

natevw

edfuh

msk_y

GordyBrow

undoingemptyvoid

quakehead

abeppu

cdeblois

nbprithv

qwertymz

perimosocordiae

stevejohnson

jbeigel

Da_Nuke

jonnyboris

foomor

lvshankar

amackera

edv4rd0

isardana

janewilson90

andyrak

mccolgan

Cema

gniero

williamcomartin

devien

jmillikin

jeffszusz

otherchirps

mrlemke

vitaliyf - 16 years

mpirnat - 3 years

wilane - 7 years

tmcw - 15 years

kayakr - 15 years

jjames - 8 years

edd - 15 years

carljm - 8 years

acdha - 12 years

shiny - 15 years

eculver - 14 years

tswicegood - 14 years

bkmontgomery - 11 years

twhitton - 14 years

vvarp - 5 years

arowla - 10 years

MarkofCain - 14 years

xurizaemon - 14 years

jeffself - 6 years

lambacck - 14 years

jackboot7 - 14 years

af - 8 years

deep - 12 years

k_wade_a - 14 years

davisagli - 9 years

kratorius - 8 years

westonruter - 13 years

mattimck - 13 years

dasil003 - 6 years

Kanru - 5 years

sfaruque - 13 years

paltman - 5 years

CerealBoy - 13 years

justinlilly - 8 years

b3cft - 13 years

jasonb - 3 years

daddy - 8 years

benjaminws - 8 years

binarydud - 13 years

sli - 13 years

adurdin - 7 years

coordt - 6 years

streetcleaner - 13 years

jcarbaugh - 8 years

pydanny - 4 years

mmai - 13 years

RossP - 6 years

mfandreas - 4 years

xhae - 12 years

stephen_mcd - 12 years

honzakral - 4 years

bkonkle - 7 years

apostolos - 4 years

nathans - 9 years

sjaekel - 12 years

metavida - 12 years

szilveszter - 6 years

pmclanahan - 7 years

gnat - 3 years

Bryan - 9 years

robhudson - 12 years

jonemo - 12 years

dmpayton - 12 years

vinilios - 8 years

sbaydoun - 12 years

anoop - 12 years

lukeman - 6 years

givas - 7 years

eddymul - 12 years

SeanOC - 12 years

brousch - 5 years

nnrcschmdt - 3 years

mcaulay - 11 years

passy - 11 years

brosner - 5 years

gg - 5 years

cpharmston - 11 years

smalltobi - 11 years

bob - 11 years

jefftriplett - 6 years

Zak - 11 years

greyfade - 11 years

ntoll - 2 years

mikl - 11 years

joe - 6 years

banterability - 11 years

patricktaylor - 6 years

ghoseb - 11 years

dabeaz - 3 years

newman - 4 years

bg4 - 8 years

adders - 11 years

bitprophet - 11 years

mathias - 11 years

pedrovalente - 10 years

notanumber - 6 years

jacobian - 2 years

asenchi - 10 years

ShawnMilo - 6 years

brettsky - 5 years

barneyboo - 10 years

drakkos - 10 years

growe - 10 years

NX172 - 10 years

jamesotron - 2 years

karlstolley - 10 years

davidpaccoud - 7 years

sceptreofjudah - 10 years

soryu2 - 10 years

adamcik - 4 years

defrex - 6 years

myles - 10 years

bmaxwell - 10 years

boutell - 10 years

mwalling - 5 years

Swizec - 10 years

gunnarlium - 10 years

bittercoder - 9 years

audreyr - 2 years

Kami - 9 years

cloudssanswater - 5 years

sdhamilton - 9 years

shywolf9982 - 6 years

Rgoodermote - 9 years

PaulM - 9 years

mrtrosen - 9 years

trey - 9 years

koichirose - 9 years

louisr - 3 years

krisse2 - 9 years

zeroaltitude - 2 years

stringfellow - 4 years

osiixy - 9 years

Vector - 9 years

daniellindsley - 5 years

eykd - 9 years

mdridley - 8 years

lcf - 8 years

floyd - 8 years

mjhagen - 1 years

seanbrant - 5 years

b3ng0 - 8 years

ellisonleao - 8 years

adambrenecki - 4 years

sebleier - 8 years

alexsuraci - 5 years

Matt - 8 years

bkopanja - 6 years

Josh - 3 years

ptone - 3 years

Indy - 8 years

gnubardt - 8 years

fourplusone - 4 years

leveille - 5 years

mowens - 8 years

nsmgr8 - 8 years

brutasse - 8 years

nullomodo - 8 years

msnaith - 8 years

collypops - 8 years

rizumu - 4 years

MichaelTran - 7 years

ch0llima - 7 years

newmaniese - 1 years

Shane - 7 years

r1chardj0n3s - 4 years

Raisapius - 7 years

dan - 7 years

sanchom - 7 years

dublindan - 2 years

chrisbrett665 - 7 years

CrociDB - 5 years

d3f3nd3r - 3 years

reed - 7 years

bseanvt - 4 years

MechanisM - 6 years

nightfly19 - 6 years

AndyC - 6 years

moriogawa - 6 years

joshontheweb - 6 years

alex - 1 years

Chirs - 6 years

Sitwon - 6 years

natevw - 6 years

edfuh - 5 years

msk_y - 6 years

GordyBrow - 6 years

undoingemptyvoid - 1 years

quakehead - 1 years

abeppu - 5 years

cdeblois - 5 years

nbprithv - 2 years

qwertymz - 5 years

perimosocordiae - 5 years

stevejohnson - 1 years

jbeigel - 5 years

Da_Nuke - 5 years

jonnyboris - 5 years

foomor - 1 years

lvshankar - 5 years

amackera - 5 years

edv4rd0 - 4 years

isardana - 4 years

janewilson90 - 4 years

andyrak - 4 years

mccolgan - 4 years

Cema - 4 years

gniero - 4 years

dl - 4 years

williamcomartin - 3 years

devien - 4 years

jmillikin - 1 years

jeffszusz - 3 years

otherchirps - 2 years

mrlemke - 2 years

vitaliyf

1997–

wilane

1997–2003

Well, you know ! Ahem !

mpirnat

1997–1999

edd

1998–

Couldn't have written my first startup without it, but then spent years looking for an alternative

carljm

1998–2005

My first real programming job was building a PHP-based CMS from the ground up. It's still around, though thankfully most of the code I wrote has been rewritten since.

shiny

1998–

tmcw

1998–

jjames

1998–2005

I did it for the money

1998–2009

1998–

1999–2003

1999–2004

Cut my web development teeth with this one.

1999–2006

To my great relief, in January 2010 last pieces of PHP I had written were taken out of production use.

tswicegood

1999–

The first language that I spent any real time with and the first language I got paid to work in. Great at all purpose, go anywhere web work, despite what its detractors say.

bkmontgomery

1999–2009

I used PHP in my first paid programming job (as a web developer).

davisagli

1999–2007

My entry to web programming. Worked during college on a PHP-based CMS. Was great in terms of being easy to get started with, but I don't miss it.

1999–

1999–2010

1999–

1999–

1999–

Jumped ship from something which had great potential but few possibilities for something with wider horizons, but which turned out deeply schizoid and with lacking coherent identity. Oops.

arowla

1999–2008

twhitton

1999–

Oh god... no... the horror.

1999–

1999–

2000–

2000–2004

2000–2007

2000–

2000–

My love for Perl gave way to the ubiquity of PHP.

CerealBoy

2000–

Best

justinlilly

2000–2007

First application was a customer satisfaction survey (with graphs!) for some company in Canada while in High School. The book I learned from was http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Web-Development-4th/dp/0672329166/

streetcleaner

2000–

First contact was impressing. After a few years I was looking forward but now I'm disappointed by the directions PHP has taken.

benjaminws

2000–2007

Meh

sli

2000–

jasonb

2000–2002

not bad

sfaruque

2000–

dasil003

2000–2005

PHP made web programming easy, but it's limitations and lack of design eventually drove me out.

mfandreas

2000–2003

pydanny

2000–2003

I used this a few times but was pretty unhappy with it.

coordt

2000–2005

adurdin

2000–2006

Hate it.

daddy

2000–2007

Sucks for design, rocks for speed.

binarydud

2000–

jcarbaugh

2000–2007

PHP was a godsend back in the day. It really changed how I thought about web development. Learning "lightweight" web programming made me a much better and more sensible Java EE developer.

2000–

2000–2005

2000–2004

2001–

Great for quick and dirty web pages, ugly syntax and libs though

bkonkle

2001–2007

honzakral

2001–2004

For my personal projects, ran away screaming as soon as I started working on anything bigger than a guestbook

apostolos

2001–2004

nathans

2001–2009

Used it first for hobbies in high school, and then at work.

sjaekel

2001–

metavida

2001–

Used for several personal projects /websites/blogs, but hasn't been a regular part of my coding since 2007.

szilveszter

2001–2006

Switched to Python.

pmclanahan

2001–2007

Learned a lot with and from this one. Glad to be done with it though.

Bryan

2001–2009

The necessary evil. I really GOT into PHP. I just did what needed to be done in order for my sites to work. At Facebook I only used it through the company's template engine. Same with WordPress. Anything I do now in PHP is related to helping get my fiancé's sites to work.

gnat

2001–2003

Learned it to edit "Programming PHP". It makes Perl look consistent.

robhudson

2001–

Lots of web development in PHP before I switched to Python.

jonemo

2001–

First played with PHP in high school. Then started earning money with it. Now using it for leisurely pursuits again.

dmpayton

2001–

vinilios

2001–2008

sbaydoun

2001–

It's the main web scripting language I use when building web applications.

anoop

2001–

lukeman

2001–2006

Still manage a few PHP apps, but I haven't written a line from scratch in years.

2001–2007

2001–

2001–

2001–2005

Mostly small intranet apps

2001–2003

2001–

2002–2006

2002–

<?php echo namespaces_are_one_honking_terrible_idea_lets_do_fewer_of_those(); ?>

mathias

2002–

mikl

2002–

PHP was the first turing-complete language I mastered.

jefftriplett

2002–2007

I thought PHP was saving me from ASP. Enough said.

ntoll

2002–2003

Used during my MSc to hack together some web-based projects. Nice to "know" it due to ubiquity of tools like Wordpress, Moodle etc...

adders

2002–

newman

2002–2005

Can't believe I'm admitting it.

bitprophet

2002–

In the end the only good thing about PHP is that it got me off of VB. I still have to use it occasionally for work purposes; otherwise it would've died for me in 2004.

joe

2002–2007

bg4

2002–2009

Used it off and on for awhile. Spent about a year building a site using Zend/PHP but have not touched it since.

bob

2002–

Zak

2002–

If I never saw this language again, it would be too soon. That said, the ease of getting simple things done in PHP got me back in to programming.

ghoseb

2002–

dabeaz

2002–2004

Taught and used PHP when teaching Internet courses at the University.

greyfade

2002–2012

A terrible train-wreck of a language. If I never use it again, it'll be too soon. Hated it since 2005, only used it because of legacy code or client requirements.

smalltobi

2002–

Used it to program my first personal website with some dynamic functions. Still using it when doing maintenance for older projects...

passy

2002–

patricktaylor

2002–2007

Sigh

mcaulay

2002–

2002–2006

banterability

2002–

adamcik

2003–2006

Still have to program PHP now and then to fix stuff, but try to avoid it when possible.

pedrovalente

2003–

asenchi

2003–

One PHP script to scrape a donors site for George Bush.

drakkos

2003–

Experimentation and teaching only. Far from my favourite language.

davidpaccoud

2003–2009

Gave web developpment access to the mass. I hate myself everytime I code in PHP.

growe

2003–

Haven't written a lot in PHP, but did knock up a couple of fairly simple web pages. Never got into its OO features, so I'm not sure how it holds up as a heavy-duty language.

barneyboo

2003–

Nothing beautiful about it, or its wildly inconsistent function names, but it's still my first choice when I just need to throw something together that works. Pretty much demands a framework to do anything more substantial with it though.

soryu2

2003–

Not a good language, but gets the job done and pays my bills atm.

brettsky

2003–2007

Used for my father's web site, http://www.CannonBullock.com.

jamesotron

2003–2004

My sugar-mistress for a while there.

boutell

2003–

Ah, PHP. Wrap the C standard library calls in a loosely typed, ill disciplined pile of goo in the tradition of Perl, add Java's familiar OOP syntax rather than Perl's obtuse one, and you've got... something I rather like, honestly. I spend most of my work hours coding PHP sites with the Symfony framework. I even write command line tools in PHP these days. I can't hold PHP and Perl syntax in my head at the same time due to the maddening similarities.

Swizec

2003–

gunnarlium

2003–

ShawnMilo

2003–2008

I used PHP just a little bit between my ASP and Python years. I made a few sites, one of which is still in production but in the process of being moved to Django. It feels disorganized and the syntax feels a bet foreign, like Perl's.

jacobian

2003–2004

A single year was all it took for me to become good enough at PHP to know that I wanted to give it up.

2003–2008

2003–

2003–

2003–2008

2003–

2003–

2003–

2003–2007

2004–

It wouldn't be a horrible language, except I keep having to fix other peoples code that has a file with 5000 lines of crap and an 'echo html' at the end of the file. Seriously. Learn python.

Kami

2004–

shywolf9982

2004–2009

The end year is more of a hope than a certainty: it's quite ubiquitous and sometimes it's simply impossible to avoid it.

zeroaltitude

2004–2005

Traditionally, PHP has had the bad reputation of encouraging users to mix logic with presentation. It's very Perl-y, so accessible, but I don't know if it has made it out of the woods as far as my first concern goes.

sdhamilton

2004–

Learned it to maintain our secondary school website, happy at how much it has developed and am using it regularly in it's new OO form.

2004–

2004–2007

2004–

2004–

Still maintain some PHP Code. write a little commercially, mostly to support PHP based CMS's (i.e. CMS modules). Really don't like the language all that much, though there are some pretty slick libraries out for it these days (the developers must be very patient ;o)

2004–2008

2004–

2004–

2004–

Very first language after HTML that I tackled, I've had a love affair since.

audreyr

2004–2005

Vector

2004–

I've worked on several games where this language was installed and did some web development.

PaulM

2004–

louisr

2004–2006

Easy language to get started with.

daniellindsley

2004–2008

osiixy

2004–

collypops

2005–

Picked this up in Uni for a 'use whatever language you want' assignment to build a basic banking system. The course was focused on databases (relational), but I used it as an opportunity to learn PHP. I now only use it in the capacity of tweaking Wordpress sites.

nsmgr8

2005–

Started my web development with it, obviously. I don't love it, but don't hate it either.

brutasse

2005–

Would like to set 2010 as "end date" but it probably won't be the case...

fourplusone

2005–2008

mowens

2005–

ptone

2005–2007

Did some simple CGI work, then some custom Drupal module work. short experiment with using it as a shell script alternative

sebleier

2005–

mdridley

2005–

Great if used in the right hands

seanbrant

2005–2009

rizumu

2005–2008

I was happy to make websites that delivered dynamic content. I never enjoyed writing PHP, but I got things done with it.

nullomodo

2005–

msnaith

2005–

I'm pretty competent with it and use it for all my websites. It's good for rapid development of prototype web service-y type things.

lcf

2005–

b3ng0

2005–

alexsuraci

2005–2009

My first real language. Piecing together a site for an obscure game server, I got tired of having to copy and paste the menu area between every page every time I changed it. A friend of mine suggested PHP, and I googled it and landed on the "include" statement. From then I kept creating things, poring over other peoples' code to learn it until I fully grasped everything. Nowadays the language isn't very appealing. I hope this "end year" is true.

Matt

2005–

PHP Web Apps from the ground up

bkopanja

2005–2010

Josh

2005–2007

Indy

2005–

A straightforward solution for dynamic web content but the language itself has some inconsistencies. My initial contact with web development.

gnubardt

2005–

leveille

2005–2009

Move over PHP, hello Python.

floyd

2005–

Still use it, because I have to.

mjhagen

2005

ellisonleao

2005–

adambrenecki

2005–2008

My first "real" programming language, which I learnt when I was 12. Prior to that, I'd learnt the basic concepts of programming first using a drag'n'drop tool called "Game Maker", and then by (re)-writing significant amounts of my games' logic in its inbuilt programming language.

newmaniese

2006

Started with WordPress and hasn't really gone anywhere since.

chrisbrett665

2006–

ch0llima

2006–

Learnt the basics on an IT course in St Andrews. Also used it to power our hack for Hackday 2009. It's absolutely horrible and is essentially one giant kludge, built on the dubious foundations of an early version of the UNIX command set. If you really want to torture yourself and avoid anything remotely resembling decent programming practices at the same time, then PHP is the way forward. MVC? What's that?

CrociDB

2006–2010

sanchom

2006–

Only dig into this when having to modify pre-existing code... wiki installations, for example.

2006–2007

2006–

2006–

2006–

Converted from Perl to PHP

d3f3nd3r

2006–2008

Shane

2006–

It's a good language, but yuck.

r1chardj0n3s

2006–2009

So far roughly one week's worth in total, and I'm hoping that will be it, forever.

Raisapius

2006–

Learned this after getting interested in server-side scripting. I've written an uber-simple wiki in it called Markerboard.

bseanvt

2006–2009

AndyC

2007–

Only casual usage

alex

2007

My intro to "real" programming. Wrote a few facebook apps in it, pretty much dropped it after I found Python.

natevw

2007–

Been using for small projects off and on for a while. Don't care for the language itself, but appreciate that it's almost as widely deployable as static HTML.

joshontheweb

2007–

I still enjoy PHP at times and it is quick and easy, but turns into a mess after projects get large.

edfuh

2007–2011

never again

GordyBrow

2007–

I used PHP for some relatively simple web projects. I'd still like to go back to it for another project at some point.

Chirs

2007–

msk_y

2007–

main language

nightfly19

2007–

Learned to program with PHP. It some ways this has hurt me. But the fact that I could actually use even ultra simple programs I made is probably what got me to stick with programming.

Sitwon

2007–

After year of avoiding anything related to web design, got pulled in to a web app project and had to learn PHP to debug some code and write a bunch of new stuff.

moriogawa

2007–

MechanisM

2007–

qwertymz

2008–

Largest accomplishment was my first proper webdev website, where I learnt, used and succeeded at PHP. Good memories.

nbprithv

2008–2009

Starting web application programming with php. Found out that i wrote some really bad scripts. still use it for simple shell scripts, cron jobs...

lvshankar

2008–

undoingemptyvoid

2008

Did a very brief spike in it for some DB change request web page, but decided to look into Grails instead.

jonnyboris

2008–

My bread and butter, use it at work, home and uni.

abeppu

2008–

amackera

2008–

Wrote a web store for a friend. Nasty, nasty spaghetti code. I've since learned to respect this language, despite its failings and quirks.

stevejohnson

2008

Quickly realized that I dislike this language.

perimosocordiae

2008–

cdeblois

2008–

Taught this to myself between jobs.

Da_Nuke

2008–

Learned it myself because I absolutely hated ASP .net with C# and its stateful pages schtick and I had to do some web services homework or something. It sucks, but when you can't use a better language it gets the job done IMO. (A little story: a friend of mine took PHP web development... and he's a marketing student who knew zilch about computers. Somehow he managed to pull it with 70% ^^)

jbeigel

2008–

quakehead

2008

Everything is in a global namespace? Grrr...

foomor

2008

mccolgan

2009–

janewilson90

2009–

Use it to make dynamic web pages and web interfaces

devien

2009–

technically i have not actually used this; i have however, tutored it and wrote stuff in it for hackday which ended up not getting used.

isardana

2009–

Learnt it as part of a work placement and have used it for 1 university project. Its rather similar to Bash in syntax and needs a decent IDE and better documented libraries to increase appeal in the corporate world.

gniero

2009–

Just for freelances

Cema

2009–

Has to use in a hobby project. Avoiding if possible. Too prevalent on hosting sites to avoid completely.

jmillikin

2009

Barring Brainfuck, PHP is the worst language I have ever used. Everything about its implementation, core libraries, and community standards drips idiocy and willful ignorance. The world will be a better place when the last PHP programmer dies, likely from shame.

2009–

winchester mystery language

2009–

2009–

2009–2011

2010–

2011–