Importance of PHP

Although initially released in 1997, it wasn’t until 2004/2005 that it gained widespread acclaim as a reliable programming language for web development. Today, you will find more than 75% of the websites in the world using PHP. It’s fast, reliable, and easy to comprehend.

Despite its great usage and availability of full toolset, it has been derided for years by programmers coding in C, Java, .NET, Python, or Ruby. Let’s take a look at how PHP has helped shape the internet we see today.

What is PHP?

PHP is a server-side scripting language that is used to develop static or dynamic webpages and Web applications. PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor. The founder of the language, Rasmus Lerdorf, named it Personal Home Page (PHP). It can easily be integrated with HTML and CSS.

This programming language works on UNIX or Apache servers –the server that has PHP installed.

Features of PHP

• Simplicity
• Interpreted
• Efficiency
• Familiarity
• Platform independent
• Real-time access monitoring
• Faster
• Flexibility
• Case sensitive
• Open-source
• Error reporting

More than 75% of the internet is powered by PHP –ranging from website and applications to portals. Since its rise, PHP developers have always been in high demand. Due to the availability of open-source content management systems, frameworks and a good compromise of speed, code quality, and development PHP are chosen as the developer’s tool for years.

Laravel is one of the most adopted PHP frameworks that is used to develop dynamic web pages. Learn more about PHP service in Des Moines and how you can implement different PHP frameworks to build a robust business website.

Importance of PHP

PHP is used by a vast number of organizations. Here are some of the importance of PHP that attests to its position as the most popular programming language in the world.

a. Easy to Learn

PHP is easy to learn and practice compared with other programming languages. It’s always good to have hand-on knowledge of HTML and CSS before learning PHP. PHP does not need one to spend a lot of time studying a manual.

b. Familiarity with Syntax

PHP has an easily comprehensible syntax. The novice programmers will find it really comfortable coding with it. If they have any programming knowledge in both C and Perl, then they will have an advantage while learning PHP.

c. Free of Cost

With a working computer or laptop, anyone can access and learn PHP free of cost. Since PHP is an open-source web development language, it’s completely free of cost. The dedicated community of PHP developers gives excellent technical support and solutions.

d. User-Friendly

As mentioned above, PHP is one of the friendliest programming languages in the industry. You can have more flexibility compared to C, C++, and ASP.

e. Supports All of the Leading Databases

PHP supports all of the leading databases such as MySQL, ODBC, SQLite and more, hence making it the most approachable programming language.

f. Efficiency in Performance

PHP is known to be versatile when writing code and also in making web applications. You can create from a static to dynamic web pages and PHP-based applications.

g. A Helpful PHP Community

PHP boasts of a large community of developers who regularly updates tutorials, documentation, online help, and FAQs. With regular updates and improvements made by the developers, you can always find solutions to your problems. Apart from this, you will get tips and tricks from PHP pros through several websites and forums.

h. Control

While different programming languages require long scripts, PHP can do that same work in a few lines of code. It has maximum control over the websites. Likewise, whenever you want to make changes, you can edit easily.

i. Platform Independent

PHP runs on just about each platform and operating system. Whether it is a Linux, UNIX, Mac OS, and Windows; it supports all the major operating systems.

j. Supports All Major Web Servers

It’s compatible with almost every major web servers like Apache, Microsoft IIS, Netscape, personal web server, iPlanet server, etc.

Why Choose PHP for Web Development?

In terms of market share, there are over 244+ million websites and applications on the internet developed using PHP scripting language. A website for the business using PHP is probably the best because of its ease of access and higher usability.

There are about 5 million PHP developers worldwide. Wordpress.com, a blog engine built in PHP, is one of the most used websites in the world.

1. Any organization can use PHP and its tools and features for free to develop a website, such as Wordpress.
2. It offers a short learning curve to the developers compared to other languages such as JSP, ASP, etc.
3. With the availability of a large community, you can easily access documents, solutions, and tips.
4. Most web hosting servers support PHP by default unlike other languages such as ASP that need IIS. This makes PHP a cost-effective choice.
5. PHP is regularly updated to keep abreast of the latest technology trends. The recent version of PHP was launched in November 2019. The next version is slated to be released in 2020 or 2021.
6. Other benefits that you get with PHP is that it’s a server-side scripting language; this means you only need to install it on the server and client computers requesting for resources from the server do not need to have PHP installed; only a web browser would be enough.
7. PHP has in-built support for working hand in hand with MySQL; this doesn’t mean you can’t use PHP with other database management systems. You can still use PHP with Postgres, Oracle, MS SQL Server, ODBC, etc.
8. PHP is cross-platform; this means you can deploy your application on a number of different operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS, etc.

Advantages of PHP over ASP

As pointed above, PHP always has an upper hand over other programming languages. Despite some drawbacks and limitations, PHP can be used for almost any purpose. Let’s discuss the advantage of using PHP over ASP .NET.

i. Fast Load Time

Websites built in PHP tend to load quicker than the website builds on other platforms. It has less buffer-time, which is a plus. PHP codes run much faster than ASP because it runs in its own memory space while ASP uses an overhead server and a COM-based architecture.

ii. Cost Saving

PHP provides necessary tools, add-ons, plugins free of charge, while ASP provides many tools that come with an additional cost. PHP has many in-built features, such as webmail (email from a web page), FTP for sharing files, encryption mechanisms. Wordpress is free of cost!

ASP, on the other hand, doesn’t have many built-in features and some additional components may be required at an additional cost.

iii. Less Expensive Hosting

The cost of hosting PHP and ASP differs. IIS is required to run ASP which isn’t available for free, whereas, PHP which runs on Linux is entirely free. Even connecting the database with ASP.Net can cost money because it uses MS-SQL. PHP, on the other hand, uses MySQL, for the most part, which is free to use open source.

iv. Database Flexibility

PHP is flexible for database connectivity. It can connect to several databases. The most commonly used is MySQL. MySQL can be used for free. To run ASP, MS-SQL, a Microsoft product, must be purchased.

v. Availability of Programmers

There are more PHP programmers than ASP. It is used more often to create new talents. It is easier to find someone who can update your site in the future if you choose to hire a staff member for the task or work with an alternate provider than the one who built your site.

vi. Base Language

PHP uses C++ as the base language, while ASP uses a Visual Basic syntax used by most Microsoft products. PHP’s base language is very similar to C#/C++, which is considered the best and easiest programming language by many programmers.

vii. Usage

Although both languages are used for programming and web development, PHP is mostly adopted by programmers for programming needs, while ASP is mostly used for developing web pages and web applications.

Make Career in PHP

According to a recent survey, the most demanded jobs required a person to own the knowledge of these programming languages.

• Java – 65,986 jobs
• Python – 61,818 jobs
• Javascript – 38,018 jobs
• C++ – 36,798 jobs
• C# – 27,521 jobs
• PHP – 16,890 jobs
• PERL – 13, 727 jobs

Salary estimated from 1,855 employees, users, and past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 36 months says that a PHP Developer in the US makes an average $85,892 a year.

Being a PHP Developer, you will be responsible for creating and implementing an array of web-based products using PHP, MySQL, Ajax, and JavaScript.

Other than working with databases, you will also develop back-end components, connect the application with other web services, and assist front-end developers by ensuring their work integrates with the application.