What is PHP ?

PHP is a server side scripting language which stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is more popular for its HTML embedded feature. Originally created by Rasmus lerdorf in 1993-94, the first name of php is Personal Home Page.

PHP used in many websites as programming language over the world and there are many reasons behind this. For e.g. It is platform independent, allow to go for less expensive hosting, Open Source,large community. PHP supports large number of CMS like WordPress, Magento, Joomla as well as frameworks like zend, larvel, codeigniter, cakephp. So Many famous website is developed in PHP like facebook, yahoo, wikipedia, sourceforge.net etc. According to survey happened in may 2015, 81.9% websites used PHP as their server side programming language. See here : Server-side Programming Language Survey

Below is Top 5 Advantages of using php

1. Open Source:

Now you know that PHP is open source means it is a free software to use. You just have to download the package, install it and use it according to your requirement. One another benefit with PHP is tools required to develop Website also an open source for e.g Apache Server, and most of Text editors notepad++, Netbeans etc. if you choose another language to develop website, it would be costly to you.

2. Platform independent:

PHP is platform independent or you can say cross platform it means php can run on any operating system. eg. Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows.

So you can run your Web App on any operating system.

3. Large Community:

The Huge Advantage of PHP is it offers large community. If you are looking for PHP jobs, ready Made code, or solutions of your problems then there are many PHP devlopers, contributors, users and employers that may help you.

4. Support Multiple Database:

One of the reason behind popularity of PHP is it supports all major databases. it supports database like CUBRID, MongoDB, Mssql, MySql, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Sybase etc.

5. PHP Frameworks:

PHP Has lots of Good quality of frameworks available that may help developers to get Job. Below are the popular list of frameworks.

• Larvel
• Yii
• CakePhp
• Zend Framework
• CodeIgniter

If You are a beginners in PHP Frameworks, i would like to recommend you begin with Codeigniter because it is easy to learn and set up.

• Codeigniter is easy to install, understand, fast, lightweight and more capable PHP Framework.
• Helpful user guide, which enables PHP Developers to understand use of whole Framework.

You can Download Codeigniter and for online documentation click here.

6. PHP CMS:

In PHP there are some popular CMS available like Magneto, Joomla, WordPress, Drupal. If we want to make shopping site we can develop using Magneto, Joomla. for blogging we used WordPress and informational site, web application Drupal is normally used. Now a days WordPress is widely used Content Management System. you can learn wordpress from here

Now over to you, let me know your thought on same topic.