PHP, one of the most popular programming languages, is going to be supported by a new foundation that aims to secure its future. The PHP language was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995 and it is a popular language to learn. According to data from W3Techs, it is used by about 78% of the world’s websites.
JetBrains, the company behind the Intellij IDEA java IDE, announced this week the new PHP Foundation. “It is the commitment of several companies that will help finance the future development of PHP, including Automattic, Laravel, Acquia, Zend, Private Packagist, Symfony, Craft CMS, Tideways and PrestaShop “and also JetBrains.
The programmer career in 2017 and in the future (with Javier Santana)
Key moment after the departure of one of PHP’s top contributors
The idea of a PHP Foundation has been pondered for years, but It was the departure of Nikita Popov, a key contributor to PHP, what made you make this decision, according to ZDnet. Popov, who has been working on PHP for 10 years, including three years while he was part of JetBrains (project that he is going to abandon in December, according to official information), has decided to change his focus to LLVM.
“Besides PHP, Nikita has long contributed to Rust and LLVM. And just like with PHP, when it went from being a hobby to a real job, Nikita has decided to focus her professional activities on LLVM, “noted JetBrains.
“Losing one of the main contributors to PHP is a blow to the community, because he is the bearer of a lot of knowledge and experience. It puts the language that powers 78% of the Web in a fragile position,” they have said from JetBrains. The foundation wants to solve a big problem for PHP: the small number of developers committed to maintaining certain key parts of PHP, an issue raised by PHP contributor Joe Watkins in May.
The PHP Foundation is raising funds through the Open Collective and has thus far raised about half of the $ 84,000 annual budget, thanks to crowdfunding, which he estimates he will need. In total, it hopes to raise about $ 300,000 a year, a third of which will come from JetBrains annually. This money should go to pay salaries for more developers who want to focus on PHP.