OFF-TOPIC Original PHP acronym

[dawn]

I was looking into the origin of PHP, thinking that when it came out
the acronym stood for Pretty HTML Pages. I know at some point the
people using it did not think that was cool, so they changed the
acronym to mean other things, settling on the recursive one you see on
wikipedia and such today. What really surprised me was that I could
not find any sites that said that the history was that PHP stands for
Pretty HTML Pages (or Pretty Hypertext Pages). Does anyone else recall
what PHP stood for when it originally came out?

I'm wondering whether

a) I thought the acronym stood for Pretty HTML Pages or Pretty
Hypertext Pages, but it never did.

b) Someone worked to eliminate this actual history of PHP and the
original meaning of the acronym from web sites

c) This information was never recorded on the web, just something
those of us reading trade papers in the 90's might recall

d) I am not googling for the right things in order to find this
information

e) Other?

Does anyone know? --dawn

[Kevin Powick]

Post by dawn
I was looking into the origin of PHP, thinking that when it came out
the acronym stood for Pretty HTML Pages.

I don't know why anyone would think this. I recall it pretty much as
described here;

http://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php

--
Kevin Powick

[dawn]

Post by dawn
I was looking into the origin of PHP, thinking that when it came out
the acronym stood for Pretty HTML Pages.

I don't know why anyone would think this.  I recall it pretty much as
described here;
http://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php

Ah, that sparked the memory, even if not on that page It was "Pretty
Home Page" -- that is what I heard back then, not "Pretty HTML Page."
Yup, now I get some google hits. Thanks Kevin. --dawn

--
Kevin Powick

[Kevin Powick]

Post by dawn

Post by dawn
I was looking into the origin of PHP, thinking that when it came out
the acronym stood for Pretty HTML Pages.

I don't know why anyone would think this.  I recall it pretty much as
described here;
http://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php

Ah, that sparked the memory, even if not on that page It was "Pretty
Home Page" -- that is what I heard back then, not "Pretty HTML Page."
Yup, now I get some google hits. Thanks Kevin. --dawn

Wha?? It seems you have "Pretty" on the brain. Read it again.
Nowhere does the word "Pretty" appear on that page.

It was originally called "PERSONAL Home Page Tools".

--
Kevin Powick

[Kevin King]

At some level I still believe (though of course it is completely
unsubstantiated) that "PHP" meant "People Hate Perl". :-)

[Kevin Powick]

Post by Kevin King
At some level I still believe (though of course it is completely
unsubstantiated) that "PHP" meant "People Hate Perl". :-)

This I could understand. ;)

--
Kevin Powick

[dawn]

Post by dawn

Post by dawn
I was looking into the origin of PHP, thinking that when it came out
the acronym stood for Pretty HTML Pages.

I don't know why anyone would think this.  I recall it pretty much as
described here;
http://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php.php

Ah, that sparked the memory, even if not on that page It was "Pretty
Home Page" -- that is what I heard back then, not "Pretty HTML Page."
Yup, now I get some google hits. Thanks Kevin.  --dawn

Wha??  It seems you have "Pretty" on the brain.  Read it again.  
Nowhere does the word "Pretty" appear on that page.
It was originally called "PERSONAL Home Page Tools".

Yup, I hear you Kevin. I was alive at that time too, and I know there
were people saying that PHP stood for Pretty <something> Pages, now
recalling it was Pretty Home Pages. I do not know if the author called
it that, but my understanding at the time was that this was the
original name from the author and that he switched it. I do not know
that this is accurate, I do know that this is what I heard at the
time. Apparently I am not the only person who heard this. I have only
found it as anecdotes so far like in a comment on this page

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/01/the-magpie-developer.html

I cannot rule out that it was originally Pretty Home Page from what I
have read, and I didn't just make up the word "Pretty" in there. --
dawn

--
Kevin Powick

[Kevin Powick]

Post by dawn
I cannot rule out that it was originally Pretty Home Page from what I
have read, and I didn't just make up the word "Pretty" in there. --
dawn

Well, you're not alone. The following search term in Google (php +
"pretty home page") gets a few hits, often people debating Pretty vs
Personal.

Since there wouldn't be any real reason to rewrite history, I don't
know why people would not accept the official historical account posted
on the PHP website itself.

--
Kevin Powick

[dawn]

Post by dawn
I cannot rule out that it was originally Pretty Home Page from what I
have read, and I didn't just make up the word "Pretty" in there.  --
dawn

Well, you're not alone.  The following search term in Google (php +
"pretty home page") gets a few hits, often people debating Pretty vs
Personal.
Since there wouldn't be any real reason to rewrite history, I don't
know why people would not accept the official historical account posted
on the PHP website itself.

Thanks for suggesting that I might not be totally off my rocker on
this one, Kevin. I wasn't trying to rewrite history, in this case,
just went to verify that what I recalled as the name (which was
incorrect as I was thinking "Pretty HTML Page") really was the
original name. When I couldn't find it at all, you helped me come up
with the correct one as Pretty Home Page sounded exactly like what I
heard when I first learned of the language. I likely learned of this
language quite soon after it was developed as I stayed pretty current
on such fronts at the time.

I also recall that quite soon thereafter, the author and others came
up with other meanings for the name, thinking that Pretty Home Page
was not a cool name for a language. If you really wish to purge your
original name from the history books, you can write up the history as
you want it to be, but you cannot purge everyone's memory. I'm pleased
to see that others have the same recollection as I do (well, I at
least remembered the Pretty part). I recognize that it might have been
inaccurate or just a rumor at the time, so there is a slim chance, in
my opinion, that the php history on the php website is accurate in
leaving out the Pretty Home Page name. cheers! --dawn

--
Kevin Powick

[Tony Gravagno]

... I know there
were people saying that PHP stood for Pretty <something> Pages...

Kevin provided the Google search term but here's a link that shows
there are others who have mentioned Pretty Home Pages:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%2BPHP+%22pretty+home+pages%22

Or, ref: http://tinyurl.com/2uwdtx4
Book "Intrusion Detection with SNORT, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and ACID"
From 2003
click Features
scroll down to chapter 6
It does say "ACID uses PHP (Pretty Home Page) scripting language".
OMG, it's written in a book! But that doesn't mean it's right.

Or might you have this confused with PGP = Pretty Good Privacy which
is a real name?

Or perhaps you saw someone wearing a shirt saying:
Pretty
Hot
Programmer
?
http://tinyurl.com/335tvpe

I kinda like Pretty Horrible Product or Pretty Horrendous Programming,
and People Hate Perl is kinda sweet too. BTW, IMO it's a good thing
Larry Wall (author of Perl) didn't name Perl after his wife Gloria as
he originally considered.

In the end ... PHP is a language, use it or don't. ;)

T

[Kevin Powick]

... or Pretty Horrendous Programming,

Kind of like what's often seen with Pick Basic code eh?

Despite what they think, most website designers are not programmers,
just like most business people aren't either.

Most often the problem is the "craftsman", not the tool they are using.

--
Kevin Powick

[Kevin King]

Post by Tony Gravagno
I kinda like Pretty Horrible Product or Pretty Horrendous Programming,

Tony, are we to understand that you don't particularly care for PHP?
You went on to say "In the end ... PHP is a language, use it or
don't. ;) " so I'm a little confused. The critique that I've heard
most often about PHP is that it's "only a scripting language, not a
REAL language" and somehow that distinction means something? I'm of
the mindset that it either solves a problem or it doesn't, and at
least for me, PHP provides what I need to solve a lot of problems in a
format that works better than a number of the alternatives.

I agree with Kevin's comment when he said "Most often the problem is
the "craftsman", not the tool they are using." One doesn't have to
look far to see some pretty butt-ugly PHP code. Or Multivalue BASIC
code. Or ASP code. Or Java code. Or... fill in the blank. Despite
that, there has been some pretty darn good looking code written in
every language... ..except possibly Perl. ;-)

(P.S. Yes, I'm joking. There's a lot of cool Perl. I just don't want
to have to maintain it.)

[Tony Gravagno]

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