Web Designing/Development

Do You Know - What Is Php And Why Use It?

Do you know - What is PHP and why use it?

Introduction to PHP?
Hypertext Preprocessor is the full form of PHP. It is the most popular open-source server-side scripting language originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. It is widely used to develop static and dynamic(interact with databases) small and large industrial web applications. 

PHP is the most preferred scripting language and is used by Facebook, Wikipedia, Slack, WordPress, Tumblr, etc.

Why do we use PHP?
There are multiple facts and reasons why we use PHP. They are –

  • The scripting language PHP is a much faster scripting language than ASP and JSP.
  • It is an interpreted language i.e. there is no need to compile the PHP program or code.
  • PHP code is written directly at the server and can embed into HTML. 
  • It is very simple and easy to learn an object-oriented language. 
  • You can install and set up it easily.
  • It is used to design dynamic or database-driven web applications with an open-source database MySQL.
  • It supports various protocols for example - HTTP, POP3, SNMP, LDAP, IMAP, etc.
  • You can control the user to access specific pages of your website using login and access control.
  • You can collect the data from users using forms, save it into the MySQL database, and show useful information to the user.
  • PHP has a faster processing speed as it uses its own memory to reduce the server loading time.
  • PHP is cross-platform and available for WINDOWS, MAC, and LINUX systems. You can use the PHP program on these platforms without any change in code.
  • PHP has a comprehensive and helpful PHP community that helps to learn, update and debug, etc the programmer or developer for free.

Where do we use PHP?
The following are the main regions where we use PHP –

  • Server-side Scripting -
    It is the most conventional and principal main area for PHP. We need three items - a PHP parser, a web server, and a web browser - for running a PHP application.
  • Command-line Scripting -
    We can run the PHP script without any server or browser with the help of a PHP parser in the command line scripting mode.
  • Writing desktop applications -
    We can create a desktop application with a graphical user interface using the advanced PHP extension - PHP GTK.

How to run PHP?

  • Manual Installation -
    We generally do not prefer the manual installation of the PHP and Web server because it requires advanced and in-depth configuration and different setup parameters knowledge.
  • Automatic Installation -
    We always prefer to install PHP and servers using the automatic method. There are following two(XAMPP and WAMP) automatic installation tools or packages are widely used -

    PHP using XAMPP Server -
    We require an installer package of the XAMPP server created by Apache Friends. It is a cross-platform web server solution and you can download it free from the Apache website as open source. You need to only run that installer package and follow the instruction while installing. The XAMPP consists of the Apache HTTP Server, MariaDB, and MySQL database, and interpreters for PHP scripts or programs.

    PHP using WAMP Server -
    It is preferably used for the production environment that is running on the Windows Operating System computer. It uses many security levels that are good for program development in PHP. We can execute the PHP program in the browser via the WAMP server to get the program output.

Which IDE is used for writing the PHP code?
The IDE provides you to write good code in minimum time and structured manner, compile, execute and debug - all at the same place. The following are PHP best IDE's names -

  • Eclipse
  • Netbeans
  • PHPStorm
  • Notepad++
  • SublimeText

What are the examples of PHP frameworks?
The popular PHP frameworks names are as follows -
Laravel 9, Yii 2.0,  CodeIgniter 4, Phalcon 4, Symfony, CakePHP 4.3, Zend 3

If you are preparing and looking for a career as a Yii 2.0 Developer, you must check the YII2 Development - Interview Questions and Answers for getting your dream job.