What is PHP? A Beginner’s Guide

PHP is a widely-used open-source scripting language particularly suited for web development. Its primary role is in server-side scripting, which means it runs on the server, not the user‘s browser and generates dynamic web content. PHP is everywhere. If you’ve ever interacted with a website that required you to log in, fill out a form or retrieve data, there’s a good chance PHP was involved in the process.

PHP stands for “PHP Hypertext Preprocessor”. That’s an iterative acronym – some developers think that’s clever/funny. But that’s developers for you.

A Brief History of PHP

PHP was created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf as a set of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts written in C. Rasmus wrote PHP track visits to his online resume. Over time, these scripts evolved into a fully-fledged programming language. In 1995, PHP Tools were released to the public, marking the first version of the toolset we use today.

Since then, PHP has undergone significant development, with the latest versions offering robust functionality for modern web applications.

How Does it Work?

When you visit a website, your browser sends a request to the server. PHP is a scripted language. On calling a web URL, the server is instructed to load a PHP script file, process it and provide output. The server normally returns the output as HTML to the browser. But that output can be almost any digital format. The server can write the output to a disk or send it via email. At Little Fire, we have used the language to create:

• PDF files
• Images
• Data exchange languages like XML and Json
• XCEL spreadsheets

and much more

Basic Syntax

To give you a taste, here’s a very basic example:

<?php
echo "Hello, World!";
?>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

In this code:

• <?php and ?> are code tags that tell the server to start and stop interpreting the code between them.
• echo is a command that outputs text to the browser.

When a user visits the page with this script, the server processes the PHP code. It then

sends “Hello, World!” as part of the HTML response.

Where a server language like PHP really shines, is that it can read data from a variety of sources. It can then return a webpage specifically built for the user and their circumstances:

<?php
echo "Hello, "World! " . $greeting . ", your last login was " . $last_login . ".";
?>Code language: PHP (php)

Common Uses

PHP is incredibly versatile and is used in a variety of applications:

• Form Handling: Collecting and processing form data, such as login details or survey responses.
• Content Management Systems (CMS): Popular platforms like WordPress and Joomla are built with PHP, enabling easy content creation and management.
• E-commerce: PHP is used in building online stores, handling everything from product listings to processing payments.
• Web Development Frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, and CodeIgniter are built on PHP, allowing developers tools to create complex web applications quickly.

Why Use PHP?

It’s been around a while, and there are newer, hipper languages out there. But PHP remains popular for several reasons:

1. Easy to Learn: For beginners, it’s one of the easier languages to pick up. Its syntax is straightforward and forgiving, making it an easy entry point for new programmers.
2. Open Source: it is free to use, and because it’s open-source, a large community contributes to its development and support. This means you’ll find plenty of tutorials, forums, and documentation to help you learn.
3. Platform Independence: it can run on almost any platform, including Windows, Linux, and macOS, making it highly versatile.
4. Integration with Databases: PHP easily integrates with various databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others. This makes it ideal for creating data-driven websites.
5. Wide Adoption: The language is used by a vast portion of the interne. Major platforms like WordPress, Facebook (in its early days) and Wikipedia all use PHP. This widespread use means there are plenty of resources and job opportunities for PHP developers.

Pitfalls of PHP

While PHP is powerful and popular, it’s not without its drawbacks. Here are some common pitfalls to be aware of:

1. Low Cost of Entry Can Mean Poor Quality Development: Getting started with PHP is easy, probably too easy. Getting started with PHP is free and little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Because an inexperienced user can achieve a great deal without jumping through many technical hoops, there is a temptation to try to develop something complex. Almost by definition, this will be at the limit of that developer’s ability. There will be a strong temptation to re-invent the wheel. Almost every developer’s first projects will feature poor engineering and a degree of redundancy – a recipe for technical debt.
2. Messy Codebases: Even experienced developers can end up writing write code in a variety of ways. This can lead to messy, unstructured and difficult-to-maintain codebases if not properly managed.
3. Security Issues: While modern versions are pretty secure, poor coding practices can still lead to significant security risks, such as SQL injection cross-site scripting (XSS) and other attacks.
4. Global Scope Issues: In earlier releases, the language relied heavily on global variables. Global variables lead to code that is difficult to debug and maintain. Using global variables improperly can result in unintended side effects, making the codebase more error-prone and potentially insecure.

In short, the very flexibility and ease of use that makes the language so versatile, in turn, makes it easy to create bad code and messy code bases. Many languages quite simply, will not permit you to make some of the poor code decisions free to a PHP developer.

Conclusion

PHP remains a powerful tool in the world of web development, especially for beginners. Its ease of use, extensive community support and widespread adoption make it an excellent choice for anyone looking to see if they like programming.

However we cannot emphasise enough that this is a language that provides you with a great deal of rope. If you want to develop with PHP, take time to learn what others have already done with it. Just because you can develop almost anything with it does not mean you should. There are a lot of pitfalls in website development.

You can achieve a great deal by leveraging the efforts of others.

If you want to develop with PHP, we recommend using a framework. A short-term steeper learning curve will reward you with a more scaleable, bug free codebase. Much of which you won’t need to maintain yourself.

It’s an open-source world and PHP can represent some of the very best of it.