Building A Website Today: What You Should Know About PHP?
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language primarily used in web development to enhance web pages. First created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf, PHP began life as a suite of scripts known as “Personal Home Page Tools.” In 1995, Rasmus expanded his suite to add functionality and released the source code to the public.
Unlike JavaScript, which is client-side, PHP is server-side. When the browser requests information from the server, the server executes the code and sends the result to the client. Typically, the output is an HTML file, but this can also include CSS and JavaScript. The browser uses this information to create the web page.
What Can PHP Do?
PHP is for a large number of useful tasks, many of which you will have experienced yourself when you visit popular websites. These tasks help developers add dynamic content and improve the user experience:
· PHP can be used to interact with files on the server (create, open, read, write).
· PHP can be used to send and receive cookies.
· PHP can be used to access and modify data held on a database.
· PHP can be used to create dynamic content.
· PHP can be used to create members-only areas on your website and manage authentication.
· PHP can be used to generate Excel and PDF documents.
Why Learn PHP?
Learning PHP is a great way to enhance your web development skills. There are many advantages to learning PHP:
PHP is Very Popular
You will probably have visited hundreds of websites that use PHP. W3techs report that 82.4% of all websites whose server-side programming language is known use PHP, with ASP.Net in a distant second with 14.5%. Many popular CMS (content management systems), including Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal, use PHP extensively.
PHP is Easy to Learn
PHP is considered to be easier to learn than many other scripting languages. It uses C syntax, which means that if you have ever learned C or C++, you will find it even easier to pick up.
Additionally, its popularity means that there is a wide range of resources available online. For example, PHP is the fourth most tagged topic on StackOverflow, with more than 1.1 million topics and thousands more added each week.
PHP is Fast
PHP gets parsed and executed quickly, so there’s little performance drop compared to loading static files. Because PHP is embedded within HTML it is also fast to develop; this makes it easy to add PHP to existing websites without having to rewrite everything.
PHP Works Almost Everywhere
PHP runs on many platforms, is compatible with modern browsers, and supports a wide range of databases.
PHP is Very Useful For A Wide Range of Jobs
The StackOverflow Developer Survey, a survey of thousands of developers, shows that developers use PHP in a wide range of situations:
· PHP is the 5th most popular technology overall (25.9% of respondents use it).
· PHP is the 3rd most popular language with front-end developers.
· PHP is the 4th most popular language with back-end developers.
· PHP is the 4th most popular language with full-stack developers.
Basically, PHP is highly useful in web development, regardless of your overall role.
Goo.roo report that there are approximately 8,000 jobs advertised per month worldwide that require PHP, with an average salary of US$66,000. In the US alone, there are approximately 2,500 jobs advertised each month, with an average salary of $89,000.
Learning PHP with SoloLearn
SoloLearn offers a free PHP course which covers 47 lessons across eight modules, and includes 99 quizzes to help you learn effectively. To take this course, we recommend you first get a working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
The course includes:
· Module 1: Basic Syntax
· Module 2: Variables
· Module 3: Operators
· Module 4: Arrays
· Module 5: Control Structures
· Module 6: Functions
· Module 7: Predefined Variables
· Module 8: Working with Files
SoloLearn’s PHP Course has already been taken by more than 850,000 students, and you will be joining a community that comprises almost millions of learners! Get started today by downloading the SoloLearn App.
