1. What is PHP?
From the preface of the manual:
PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly.
A nice introduction to PHP by Stig Sæther Bakken can be found at http://www.zend.com/zend/art/intro.php on the Zend website. Also, much of the PHP Conference Material is freely available.
2. What does PHP stand for?
PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. This confuses many people because the first word of the acronym is the acronym. This type of acronym is called a recursive acronym. The curious can visit Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing for more information on recursive acronyms.
3. What is the relation between the versions?
PHP/FI 2.0 is an early and no longer supported version of PHP. PHP 3 is the successor to PHP/FI 2.0 and is a lot nicer. PHP 4 is the current generation of PHP, which uses the Zend engine under the hood. PHP 5 uses Zend engine 2 which, among other things, offers many additional OOP features.
4. Can I run several versions of PHP at the same time?
Yes. See the INSTALL file that is included in the PHP 4 source distribution. Also, read the related appendix.
5. What are the differences between PHP 3 and PHP 4?
There are a couple of articles written on this by the authors of PHP 4. Here's a list of some of the more important new features:
Extended API module
Generalized build process under Unix
Generic web server interface that also supports multi-threaded web servers
Improved syntax highlighter
Native HTTP session support
Output buffering support
More powerful configuration system
Reference counting