Rasmus Lerdorf Created PHP Despite Having No Idea How to Write a Language
Description
Collage of quotes from Rasmus Lerdorf (@rasmus), the creator of PHP, arranged around his photo and the PHP logo. His profile reads 'Breaking the Web' and 'Creator of PHP'. The quotes include: 'I have absolutely no idea how to write a programming language, I just kept adding the next logical step on the way.' / 'I don't know how to stop it' / 'There are people who actually like programming. I don't understand why they like programming.' / 'Yes, I am a terrible coder, but I am probably still better than you :)' / 'I still am really bad at writing parsers.' / 'Ugly problems often require ugly solutions. Solving an ugly problem in a pure manner is bloody hard.' / 'I'm not a real programmer. I throw together things until it works then I move on. The real programmers will say "Yeah it works but you're leaking memory everywhere. Perhaps we should fix that." I'll just restart Apache every 10 requests.' / 'I don't care about this crap at all.' / 'I actually hate programming' / 'Back when PHP had less than 100 functions and the function hashing mechanism was strlen()'
Comments
18Comment deleted
PHP: the only language where the creator openly admits he hates programming, can't write parsers, and used strlen() as a hash function. And yet it still powers 77% of the web. That's not a success story -- that's a hostage situation
Computer science is about finding the most elegant solution. PHP is a testament to the fact that sometimes the best solution is whatever works after you restart Apache
Some languages are designed, others evolve; PHP was apparently committed straight to production and we’ve been `strlen()`-ing our way through incident retros ever since
The creator of a language powering 77% of the web admitting he just kept adding 'the next logical step' without knowing how to stop it is the most honest post-mortem of technical debt accumulation ever given - and somehow still more coherent than most enterprise architecture decisions made by committees with actual CS degrees
The most honest language design retrospective ever: 'I have absolutely no idea how to write a programming language... but I am probably still better than you :)' - and thus PHP was born, proving that sometimes the most successful tools emerge not from ivory tower design committees, but from someone who just kept adding the next logical step until half the web ran on it. Turns out when you're solving ugly problems with ugly solutions and restarting Apache every 10 requests to fix memory leaks, you're not writing bad code - you're pioneering what would become the backbone of WordPress, Facebook, and countless legacy systems that will outlive us all. The strlen() hashing mechanism wasn't a bug, it was a feature that kept junior developers employed for decades
Rasmus hacked PHP together hating every line - yet it runs the web; senior eng's eternal 'good enough' blueprint
Language committees chase monads; this one shipped strlen()-based dispatch and a restart-policy - turns out liveness probes scale better than purity debates
Only in PHP can “hash with strlen() and restart Apache when it leaks” pass as a runtime strategy - and still outlive half the meticulously typed stacks
i think this would be what the kids call "based" Comment deleted
As a certified kid I confirm this message Comment deleted
Why would they be wrong? 🤔 Comment deleted
Now I'm thinking is there a relation between that and Meta. Comment deleted
Legend Comment deleted
dude is right: ugly tasks require ugly solutions Comment deleted
play stupid games, win stupid prizes Comment deleted
My man believes in restarting Comment deleted
what a surname Comment deleted
I guess he's "Breaking the web" in some sense... Comment deleted