PHP : Server-Side Programming Language for Dyanamic Websites

Almost all of has heard of PHP. But, what is this PHP ?
PHP is a server side programing language that is best suited to create the dyanamic websites and it uses the syntax similes to  C++

Where PHP is used

PHP can be used to create websites and web programs, for example PHP can be used by the online stores to create forms or build a full CMS (Content Management System) or its add ons, for WordPress, these Add ons are called Plugins.

Prerequisites for a Server to run PHP

MySQL is generally used to create the needed database so that PHP can use the Internet protocol. PHP generally can be installed after installation of Apache web server. This is needed to parse the websites you have created.

For using most CMS like WordPress, we generally create a database from MySQL and then upload the WordPress installation and do as per instructions. We generally do not use phpMyAdmin, (phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL), but  phpMyAdmin can be used instead of MySQL Wizard (comes along with cPanel) to install these CMS.

Brief history and origin of PHP

PHP is practically now an unbeatable competitor to Microsoft’s Active Server pages (ASP) , PHP stands for Personal Home Page, but now the full form of the recurse acronym stands for Hyper text Preprocessor.

PHP was originally written by Rasmus lerdorf, in 1995. PHP is a free software distributed under a kind of (own version) GNU General Public License.

PHP is a scripting language which outputs the stream of as HTML output : HTML Strict, Transitional or HTML 5. More than 75 percent content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, FaceBook (proprietary) is based on PHP.

There is a common misconception that the CMS those are based on PHP also follows the GNU General Public License. This is not true as there are Premium PHP based CMS as well as Premium Plugins.

Like any popular and common scientific arena, those who are learning the server side programming languages, often uses certain PHP terminologies typically in the college campus jokingly, “if function exists”. Example : “take the umbrella, if function exists!”. Means, if it rains then the umbrella will come to work.

Link to Official Website of PHP is Here.

Advantages and Disadvantages of PHP

PHP can run virtually on any Operating System.

For many CMS a typical term is used : Hook. This hook makes the CMS very flexible or fluid. PHP offers hundreds of advantages and as it is free, lots of development is going on based on PHP.

The only possible disadvantage of PHP is, as the HTML output needs to be rendered every time, it increases the page loading time and burden on the Server. To solve this problem, some other PHP scripts (for example Cache Plugins in WordPress) are used to make them virtually a static HTML page.