PHP, short for Hypertext Preprocessor is a widely used programming language designed for web development. In this first post i will tell you more about what PHP is and wat you could do with it. In Future posts of this serie “[PHP] The basics” we will dive in the language itself and learn to program with it. As final project of this course we wil create a working login and registration system but for now lets talk about what PHP has to offer.
What is PHP
PHP is a Server-Side programming language. This means the code is executed on the webserver before it has been send to the user’s webbrowser. This is different from other programming languages which run in the user’s webbrowser like JavaScript.
PHP is an Open Source language what makes it free to use and distribute. This contributed to its widespread use as one of the biggest programming language used in web development. It is also easy to combine with HTML waht makes creating dynamic webpages easy.
What can you do with PHP
With PHP you can create a lot, and a lot is created with PHP. For example one of the biggest social media platforms Facebook is created using PHP (notice the .php extension in the url when browsing facebook?) Here are some examples of what you can create with PHP:
- Dynamic web pages: You can build web pages that change how they work or look based on user input, database information or other factors like the current time in the day.
- Web Applications: You could also build complex web applications, such as a webshop, social media platform (like facebook) or blog like your reading now.
- Database Interaction: PHP can also connect to different databases (like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc.) to store en retrieve data such as user profiles, chats and many more data
These are just a few examples of what you can do with PHP, there are to many to name them all. In essence, PHP is a tool that empowers developers to create dynamic and interactive web applications.
In the next post we will start learning the basics of PHP so one day you might be able to make an application as big and powerful as Facebook. Are you excited to get started with this course?
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