Illustrations

One drawing per chapter, registered here with the prompt used to generate it, so the visual style stays consistent and reproducible across the book. None of the image files exist yet; this page is the production handoff between this draft and whoever generates the final art. Every prompt should be run with the same house style: flat, editorial line art, no text baked into the image, a limited palette that reads clearly in both a light and a dark theme, no photorealism, no logos.

Ch01 - images/ch01-reputation.png

Alt text: A weathered signpost reading PHP 4 era next to a newly paved road continuing past it, both leading toward the same contemporary skyline.

Prompt: Flat editorial line-art illustration. A weathered, slightly rusted signpost on the left, planted at the start of a cracked, old road, with the road continuing but transitioning seamlessly into smooth, newly paved surface as it stretches toward a clean, contemporary city skyline on the horizon. One continuous road, not two separate paths, to show continuity rather than a fork. No readable text on the sign itself. Muted, limited palette; works in both light and dark backgrounds.

Ch02 - images/ch02-runtime.png

Alt text: A single request shown as a small box that boots an application, runs, sends a response, and is torn down completely, with a second, identical box starting fresh beside it, sharing nothing with the first.

Prompt: Flat editorial diagram-style illustration. Two identical, simple rectangular process boxes side by side, each with a small arrow entering (request) and a small arrow leaving (response), each fully self-contained with no connecting lines or shared elements between them, emphasizing complete independence. Minimal, technical, schematic feel rather than decorative. Limited two-tone palette plus one accent color.

Ch03 - images/ch03-who-runs.png

Alt text: A world map with two overlapping layers: a dense shading across most countries representing server footprint, and a smaller, brighter cluster of dots representing the professional developers who write the code.

Prompt: Flat editorial world map illustration, simplified continents, no country borders or labels. One layer is a broad, soft shaded overlay across most landmasses. A second, visually distinct layer of small bright dots, sparser and clustered in specific regions, sits on top. The two layers should read as clearly different kinds of data at a glance, not blended into one.

Ch04 - images/ch04-performance.png

Alt text: A simple racetrack with PHP shown ahead of Python but behind Go, Rust, Java, and C#, illustrating that the comparison depends entirely on which lane you are standing in.

Prompt: Flat editorial illustration of a simple oval racetrack viewed from above, with five simple, unlabeled runner or vehicle icons at different points along the track, one clearly ahead of a second, both clearly behind a cluster of three others further along. No text labels on the runners themselves; the visual position alone should convey relative standing. Minimal, schematic, not literal or branded.

Ch05 - images/ch05-scale.png

Alt text: Several identical small server boxes in a row, each one stateless and interchangeable, all pointing to a shared database and cache layer drawn beneath them as the only place state actually lives.

Prompt: Flat editorial diagram-style illustration. A horizontal row of four or five identical, simple server-box icons, each connected by a downward arrow to one shared, distinctly styled layer beneath them representing a database and cache. The server boxes themselves should look interchangeable and undifferentiated from each other; the shared layer beneath should visually read as the only element that is not duplicated.

Ch06 - images/ch06-maintains.png

Alt text: A loose circle of small figures around a shared, open codebase, representing a distributed community rather than a single vendor or company.

Prompt: Flat editorial illustration of eight to twelve small, simple, abstract human figures arranged in a loose, irregular ring around a central open book or open-bracket icon representing a shared codebase. No single figure larger or more central than the others, to avoid implying a single leader or vendor. Minimal, warm but not decorative.

Ch07 - images/ch07-cost.png

Alt text: A single PHP application shown running unchanged across three different, differently shaped hosting environments: a bare-metal server, a small VPS, and a container orchestrator, with no adapter layer between them.

Prompt: Flat editorial diagram-style illustration. One identical small application icon (a simple rounded square with the same internal mark) shown three times, each sitting directly inside a differently shaped container: a plain rectangle (bare-metal server), a smaller rounded box (a VPS), and a hexagonal or grid-patterned shape (a container orchestrator). No connecting adapter or translation layer drawn between the application icon and any of the three shapes, to emphasize direct fit in each case.

Ch08 - images/ch08-governance.png

Alt text: A single ballot box at the center of a wheel of contributors, with a large majority of the wheel shaded to represent the two-thirds threshold a change needs to pass.

Prompt: Flat editorial illustration of a circular wheel divided into segments representing contributors, viewed from above, with a simple ballot-box icon at the exact center. Roughly two-thirds of the wheel’s segments are shaded in one accent color, the remaining third left unshaded, to visually represent a supermajority threshold without any text or percentage labels.

Ch09 - images/ch09-wrong-choice.png

Alt text: A decision tree with PHP as the trunk and several branches, some ending in a checkmark, others ending in a small warning flag, representing a workload where PHP is not the right fit on its own.

Prompt: Flat editorial diagram-style illustration of a simple branching tree structure, drawn top to bottom, with one trunk splitting into five or six branches of varying length. Two or three branches end in a small, simple checkmark icon; the remaining branches end in a small, simple warning-flag icon. No text labels on any branch; the icon at each branch tip alone should convey the distinction.

Ch10 - images/ch10-evaluation.png

Alt text: A short, hand-checked list with a pencil resting beside it, each line representing one command or public page a reader can verify in an afternoon.

Prompt: Flat editorial illustration of a small notepad or checklist, shown at an angle, with four or five short horizontal lines representing list items, two of them with a small checkmark beside them already, and a simple pencil resting diagonally across the corner of the pad. No readable text on the list lines themselves.