PHP is a server-side scripting language which is mainly used for web applications to get the data dynamically from the web-server. PHP works in a very similar fashion to the other well-known scripting languages such as Microsoft ASP.NET and JSP (Java Server Pages). The very first version of PHP was written in early 1995 and grew over the years. The current version of PHP is PHP 7.0 and was released on 3rd December 2015 which is supported till the 3rd December 2018. PHP 7.1 is expected to get released in 2016.
These languages are mainly used to get the data dynamically from the web-server. Let us briefly understand why you need to host the database of your application on the webserver. The answer is - to get the data dynamically. What does that mean? Assume the application has different users who add, edit, update the data/content of the application frequently when needed. So if you have hosted the database centrally on the web, then every user will get the updated information from the central database.
The use of PHP
As we understood, the main use of PHP language is to build server-side web development.
Let us see a glimpse of the possible solutions using PHP.
• Dynamic Business Applications
• Dynamic Web Content Management System
• Dynamic eCommerce Store/Shopping Cart Solutions
• Dynamic Web Portal Development
• Web Interface Development for mobile applications or third-party APIs development
Benefits
Opensource & Cost effective: There are development environment setup costs involved with the scripting languages like ASP, JSP, CGI and Perl. While as PHP is opensource, there is no cost involved to code the programs using PHP. It is freely available to code with no licensing or any other cost. And thus, the development cost using is low compared to other scripting languages. It is the hot favorite technology for every small business that wants stable solutions at an affordable cost.
Flexibility: As PHP is opensource, one can use any available editor for coding the new functionalities or editing into the existing features. While ASP is limited to Microsoft Visual Studio editor, being a licensed product.
PHP Frameworks: There are wide range of frameworks available that can be used to develop various requirement-specific solutions. The top in demand frameworks nowadays are as below.
- Zend Framework
- CakePHP
- Symphony
- Laravel
- Typo3
- Yii
- Drupal
- WordPress
The above listed are all MVC frameworks which helps developers to choose the basic pre-built ready foundation to reduce the development time based on the application requirements features and complexity. The requirements could be different, such as database-driven content management site development, small business application development, enterprise level complex application development. Considering such scenarios, PHP has ready built frameworks / ready foundations with well-organized MVC structure and database relationships which reduce the re-coding of everything for every single project and allows choosing the right base for the right project. This also helps to minimize the project development cost using the ready structure where the development team has to implement just only the features which are not available in ready framework and the customization in the existing features to match the requirements.
Scalability: The enterprises are growing day by day and that is why in this dynamic world, the usage requirements are also frequently changing. So, the way we want the application work today, tomorrow we might want it differently with enhanced features and with more data results. That is how the scalability comes into the picture and we have to choose the right scalable technology, in the beginning, itself considering the future enhancement of the application. The way PHP is built followed by MVC (Model, View, and Controller) Structure; you can easily increase the cluster size by adding more servers as the requirements grow.
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