PHP debabbled
Today is part four in my unsanctioned series on open source, a brief guide to the server-side scripting language, PHP. So let's start with the obvious question: "What's a server-side scripting language?" Since HTML is ultimately just a language for describing layout, the evolution of the internet eventually required something a bit more heavy-duty, which is to say real programming languages. Since web browsers were only designed to handle HTML, it originally made sense to run any programs on the web server, and then deliver just the output to the end-user (also called the "client") in HTML. This is called server-side programming or scripting, and it has a couple of advantages. First, you can develop a large program and huge databases without worrying about having to send them over the internet (potentially a big problem in the early, bandwidth-poor days of the web). Second, your code and any proprietary information connected to it are protected, as the web-surfer only sees the resulting page.What is PHP?
PHP, then, is a server-side scripting language developed by the open source community. After a revision or two, PHP now stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, which is meant to be clever and repeats itself infinitely, but which sounds a lot more like technobabble than the original name, Personal Home Page. PHP, in a nutshell, allows programmers to develop server-side programs to drive web applications and data-driven websites.
What's in it for me?
If you need a website that does more than just sit there looking pretty, and if you host that site in an open source environment, then PHP is probably your best bet. I feel like I may be overdoing this point in the last few entries (I'm not really that cheap), but like other open source applications, PHP has the selling point of being generally free. PHP is also one of the most popular server-side scripting languages on the web, so you'll be in good company.
If you'd like more resources, a good place to start is the official PHP website, www.php.net. One last note: Although PHP is powerful and accessible, and you can get a lot of help just by browsing the internet, it shares a lot with the C/C++ programming language. In other words, it was developed by programmers for programmers, and it can be pretty cryptic and a little unfriendly to a programming newbie. If you've never programmed before and plan to learn PHP from scratch, make sure to give yourself some time and try to find someone with prior experience that you can call on in a pinch.
