michaelbain

If you need to embed dynamic text into static text, you’ll find PHP extremely useful. It was designed for this, and it excels at it. PHP is also very useful for integrating web pages with databases.

The PHP scripting language resembles JavaScript, Java, and Perl, These languages all share a common ancestor, the C programming language.

PHP is most different from JavaScript and Java. PHP is a server-side scripting language. All of the “work” is done on the server. JavaScript (and Java) generally run on the client. They have little access to the information that the server has, and mediated access to information on the client. They can do lots of things on the client that PHP cannot. PHP has full access to the information that the server has, and very little access to information that the client has. In fact, it only has information that the client tells the server and that the server passes on to PHP. Because it is on the server, however, PHP cannot be modified by the client. While you cannot necessarily trust the information that the client gives to PHP, you can trust that your PHP is doing what you told it to do. Because PHP is on the server end, your PHP scripts can affect your server–such as by keeping an activity log or updating a database.

PHP allows you to interact with your visitors in ways HTML alone can’t. This can mean simple things like e-mail forms, or more elaborate things like shopping carts that save your past orders and recommend similar products. It can also mean social things like interactive forums and private messaging systems.

PHP (coupled with MySQL databases) is also arguably the most widely used wed development environment in the real world. It is supported by most hosters and there is a wealth of programming experience out there. A project developed in PHP is assured continued support by many professionals as it is not a niche market or a corporation owned technology.

Using PHP scripting and MySQL database enables programmers to create applications that’ll run on just about any computer, regardless of operating system. PHP has thousands of programming functions to facilitate almost any task.

If a computer can run web server software, a PHP / MySQL application is portable across operating systems and environments … PC, Mac, Linux, Unix, Windows, Lindows, Internet, Intranet, etc. This means you can develop a project on my Windows PC, and send it to my friend in Slovakia who can run it on his Linux box. It also means you are not locked in with a hosting provider.

Because there are so many existing opensource PHP and MySQL projects out there, development time (and thus cost) can also be vastly reduced if existing solutions are utilised and only customised – and not developed from the ground up.

Take the leap!