What is PHP?
PHP(short for Hypertext PreProcessor) is the most widely used open source and general purpose server side scripting language used mainly in web development to create dynamic websites and applications. It was developed in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf. A survey by W3Tech shows that almost 79% of the websites in their data are developed using PHP. It is not only used to build the web apps of many tech giants like Facebook but is also used to build many CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress, Drupal, Shopify, WooCommerce etc.
Why to use PHP?
PHP can actually do anything related to server-side scripting or more popularly known as the backend of a website. For example, PHP can receive data from forms, generate dynamic page content, can work with databases, create sessions, send and receive cookies, send emails etc. There are also many hash functions available in PHP to encrypt user’s data that makes PHP secure and reliable to be used as a server-side scripting language. So these are some of the abilities of PHP that makes it suitable to be used as server-side scripting language. You will get to know more of these abilities in further tutorials.
Even if you are not convinced by the above abilities of PHP, there are some more features of PHP. PHP can run on all major operating systems like Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X etc. Almost all of the major servers available today like Apache supports PHP. PHP allows using wide range of databases. And the most important factor is that it is free to use and download and anyone can download PHP from its official source: www.php.net.
Who are using it?
- Big Tech Giants like Facebook, Slack, Lyft etc.
- Content Management System like WordPress, Drupal etc.
- E-Commerce Platforms like Magento and many more.
Advantages:
- Platform Independent
- Open source and dynamic Library support
- Organized
- Database Connectivity
- Easy to understand and code
- Gives Web Developer More Control
- Easy integration and consistency
- Maintenance
- Stability
- Performance
- Reliability
- Scalability
- Compatibility
