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If you are in the technology industry, you’ve probably heard of the abbreviation PHP. Originally, the acronym stood for personal homepage, coined by the creator Ramus Lerdorf. However, PHP is now known as the “PHP: hypertext preprocessor” after the name was changed years ago.
At the most simple level, PHP is a programming language. It helps program across several platforms. It is now considered a general-purpose scripting language that is mostly used for web development jobs or web application projects without the help of WordPress themes. The key innovation of PHP allows websites to serve up dynamic pages. Previously, a user would request a specific static page from a server. The server would then send back the exact static page. However, with the implementation of PHP, the server serves an output from its database, which may change. This allows for dynamic pages to sent to the end user on the same url.
Why Use PHP
If you are a beginner developer, you should consider starting with PHP because it provides many benefits to those just starting out. This programming language is incredibly easy to use. This makes it the perfect coding language for beginners. In addition, PHP is entirely free. You do not have to worry about shelling out money for a hobby you may drop in a month or two. If you are just starting to become a developer, consider starting to code with PHP.
Required Installations
To develop using PHP, you need to install Apache and MySQL (in addition to the PHP code). It can be run on Linux, Mac and Windows operating system environments. There are several helpful tutorials available to get everything set up. Even for a novice, anyone can learn the basics fairly quickly as compared to icon design.
Constant Updates
PHP is being constantly updated. The latest release was just less than a week ago. On October 16th, PHP 5.4.34 was released. Older versions from PHP 3.0 to PHP 5.0 power hundreds of millions of websites on the web along with several of the most used applications.
Continued Improvements
In the future, PHP seems to continue improving. There are high expectations for the release of PHP 7.0, collaboration with WordPress and development of a Just In Time compiler being worked on. No doubt, PHP was innovative in the 90’s and will continue to be innovative the next 5-10 years down the road at least.
What Can PHP Help You Do?
The first thing that is a must-learn in any PHP for beginners lesson is what PHP enables you to do on your webpage or minisite. PHP can help you do many different things, but primarily it is extremely useful for providing the same website to users of different platforms. For instance, you can use PHP to create your desktop webpage and the webpage that is optimized for mobile viewing. Today, many people use their phone as their primary tool to browse the web. PHP is a vital part of making sure that your website is accessible for as many users as possible.
Using the PHP scripting language, you have many options to develop locally and on the web. Do you want to learn more about PHP? If so, what would you build?
Image from http://blog.flowl.info/2014/mastering-unicodeutf-8-encoding-php/
