If you’re a business owner looking for a web presence for your business, you probably don’t care about the minutiae of web design and development as long as your website looks good and functions well; but there are a few acronyms and abbreviations used in web development that you should know more about – one of those is PHP programming. Why is knowing about PHP more important than knowing about HTML, XML, ASP or any of the other abbreviations that have to do with web design and development?  Because PHP is probably the most popular scripting language used on the web and it will give you a cutting-edge website, full of all of the bells and whistles you want and need.

What PHP Is

PHP is an open source (or free), server-side scripting language. Server-side means that PHP doesn’t get executed on a user’s computer but on the computer from which the page was requested. The results of the request are sent to the user’s computer and are displayed in a browser. PHP can be used to create dynamic web pages that interact with users in such a way that each user visiting the page sees customized information. PHP programming can be used to create usernames, password login pages, check details of a form, create forums, picture galleries and surveys, among many other things. As of January 2013, over 200 million websites were using PHP as a server-side scripting language.

How PHP Programming Began

In 1994, programmer Rasmus Lerdorf wrote what he called, “a simple set of tools,” to maintain his personal home page – hence the initials, “PHP” for “Personal Home Page.” He extended the development of these tools, or programs, to work with web forms and to communicate with databases. He called this implementation, “Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter” or “PHP/FI.” Since that time, dozens if not hundreds of programmers have had a hand in developing newer, better versions of the PHP program. PHP 7 was released in December 2015 with a number of significant changes and improvements over previous iterations of the program.

Why PHP Is So Popular

PHP is easy to learn and has great documentation and great community support, which means there’s almost no problem a programmer may have with PHP that can’t be solved online, either through the PHP manual or through community forums.  PHP is also robust and scalable; it can be used for even the most demanding applications and it can deliver excellent performance, even at high loads. And, most importantly, it’s free.

To find out more about PHP programming and how it is used in web development, call us at Axis Software Dynamics at (469) 535-7500. You can also visit us online at axissoftwaredynamics.com to get information about all of our services, including marketing, website design and custom software development.