PHP: "Powering Hypertext & Programs"

A suggestion for redefining the acronym for PHP

Should PHP be renamed? It's more general than a "PHP: hypertext preprocessor" or a "personal home page" suggests.

According to Wikipedia, the creator of PHP believes neither previous acronym should be used:

Originally called "Personal Home Page Tools" by creator Rasmus Lerdorf, it was rewritten by developers Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans who gave it the recursive name "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor". Lerdorf currently insists the name should not be thought of as standing for anything, for he selected "Personal Home Page" as the name when he did not forsee PHP evolving into a general-purpose programming language.

OK, but people are not going to stop asking what it stands for when they first hear of it. Let's give them something accurate:

"PHP stands for Powering Hypertext & Programs." That sounds about right to me. PHP is mostly used for creating web pages, or hypertext, but can be and is also used for more general scripting and processing.

Thoughts?


January 12th, 2008
Alan Hogan (@alanhogan_com).  Contact · About