Rasmus Lerdorf
GreenlandBiography of Rasmus Lerdorf
Rasmus Lerdorf is a Danish-Canadian programmer who is best known as the creator of the PHP programming language. He was born on November 22, 1968, in Kekertarsuak, Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Early Life and Education
From 1988 to 1993, Lerdorf studied at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Systems Design Engineering. While studying at the university, Lerdorf worked for various corporations, developing graphical interfaces for specialized programs.
Career
After completing his studies, Lerdorf joined Nutec Informática as part of the UNIX/DOS programming team, where he contributed to the development of the Nutec Desktop interface. In 1994, he created a graphical interface for a Toronto Internet Service Provider. Later that year, Lerdorf founded his own company, Lerdorf Consultants Inc., where he began working on simplifying the technology for creating interfaces for web tasks without the need for complex visual editors.
Creation of PHP
In the mid-1990s, Lerdorf released a script called "PHP-Tools for Personal Home Page," which collected statistics about webpage visits. This script, with its open-source code, marked the beginning of PHP's development. Lerdorf actively sought feedback from users, processing comments and errors to expand and improve his own creation. Over time, this script evolved into what is now known as the PHP programming language, a language for non-visual and non-template-based website and web application development.
Later Career
While continuing to develop PHP and oversee his own company, Lerdorf collaborated with Bell Global Solutions from 1996 to 1999, focusing on implementing internet business solutions. In 1999, he joined IBM Corporation and later moved to Linuxcare Inc. Lerdorf was already a member of the Apache HTTP Server development group and the Apache Software Foundation's board of directors at this point.
Since 2002, Lerdorf has been working at Yahoo! Inc. as a strong advocate for open-source software. He maintains connections with numerous PHP programmers, constantly enhancing and modifying his creation. Lerdorf has also authored over fifteen books on the PHP language.
Personal Life
In October 1999, Rasmus Lerdorf married Kristin, and in March 2002, they welcomed their son, Carl Alexander Lerdorf.
