PHP programming language

PHP is a general programming language especially developed for web designing. The famous server-side scripting language was originally introduced by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 following the PHP reference execution which is now supported by the PHP development teams. The initial idea of PHP stood for Personal Home Page. However, it was recently altered to a more appropriate acronym PHP, Hypertext Preprocessor.

PHP codes can be used individually by being embedded into HTML or HTML 5 markup or in another context, combinations with several web templates, content management systems, and web frameworks can be created. The language is first and foremost processed by an interpreter which is considered as a web serving module or even a Common Gateway Interface executable. The final output given by the interpreted and implemented PHP code is then combined with the web software which works on various kinds of data such as images along with the processed web page. The PHO codes also have the option of getting generated with a command-line interface and execute standalone graphical applications.

Advantages of PHP language

1. PHP is an open source language and is maintained by a large community of developers.
2. It is quite well-known for its faster speed when compared to other languages in the same sphere.
3. It uses up very fewer system resources.
4. The syntax of PHP is very easy to read and pretty much similar to that of the traditional C language. If you know even a little bit of C coding, you might as well enjoy working with PHP.
5. PHP also boasts of a wide library where you can browse through pdfs, graphs and other range of documents.
6. PHP has built-in database connection modules which work for the content-driven website and their development by increasing the level of applications and reducing the development time.
7. It can be used by hosting services relying on its management abilities and astounding library facilities.
8. It works on various kinds of platforms such as windows, Linux and Mac without any disturbances.
9. There are many frame works available in the sphere of PHP which enhance the quality of programs and their outputs.

Disadvantages of PHP language

1. The property of being open-source can be seen as a huge pothole in the language since the source code can be viewed by anyone. This raises security concerns about a certain code. Any bugs can be identified by random programmers and weakness of PHP can be used against the original user.
2. It is not very modular when compared to languages such as Java and Python. Due to this reason, PHP cannot be used to create and maintain large applications which require a lot of system resources.
3. Unlike many other side serving languages, it is not a strongly typed language.
4. The framework of PHP is considered to be very bad at error handling and this has been one of the biggest complaints of PHP users. Only specialized PHP programmers are able to handle the sudden crashes and unidentified errors.
5. Just the way PHP cannot handle large applications, it is also not suitable if you are working on a varies range of applications at the same time.

Applications of PHP language

1. PHP is most widely used in the web development and designing industry due to its exceptional ability of side serving web pages.
2. It is used for scripting in graphical applications.
3. Many management or database systems use PHP for the framework and relational database management.
4. PHP is one of the server clients of famous companies such as Microsoft and Java server pages.
5. Web applications such as games, videos, and graphic designing use PHP to a great extent.
6. PHP is also used to write custom extensions for certain applications which might not be originally based on the same language. Even then, PHP is known for handling such extensions with quite an ease.
7. PHP is also used for embedding particular software into other larger systems providing a tight interface with the project’s internal data structures.

Why should you learn PHP language?

PHP is well known in the web designing industry and it is hence a must learn if you are planning to launch your career in that field. PHP is also an easy language to learn and it shall not take up a lot of your time.

The libraries provided by PHP are quite useful for making applications which are termed unique and distinct.

If you are a programming geek or want to become one, then learning and practicing PHP will help you to get the hang of it. This is because of the error handling ability of PHP which requires the user to be more efficient than the system itself.