DEV Community

Discussion on: Quiz : What do these acronyms mean ? (HTML, PHP, SQL...)

 
clementgaudiniere profile image
Clément Gaudinière • Edited

Where does the first letter come from ? I wanted to say that compared to the other propositions of the quiz, this one was not obvious since the answer does not start with a P

Thread Thread
 
jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️ • Edited

The P comes from PHP... as I said, it's a recursive acronym. Other examples include:

  • WINE – WINE Is Not an Emulator.
  • cURL – cURL URL Request Library.
  • RPM – RPM Package Manager
Thread Thread
 
clementgaudiniere profile image
Clément Gaudinière

Or Bing:

  • Bing is not Google

For php historically, this recursive acronym was the abbreviation of Personal Home Page; in 2008, the recursive acronym is the official meaning of PHP. So it is a recursive acronym but for me it is a special case.

Thread Thread
 
jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️

Yes, it was originally Personal Home Page. How is it a special case? It's no different to the other recursive acronyms

Thread Thread
 
clementgaudiniere profile image
Clément Gaudinière • Edited

It later became a recursive acronym, but it was not initially recursive, unlike many others. But I have now specified in the article that PHP is a recursive acronym. Thanks.