Why do we use PHP
PHP language is turning 24 in 2019, but even now, in an era of growth and rapid development of a large number of modern web technologies, this programming language continues to be in demand. Why do entrepreneurs opt for it? To begin with, it’s worth paying attention to the description of the language.
PHP stands for “Personal Home Page”. This is a programming language intended to bind user to the server-side. The syntax is simple and easy to learn. Such functions as feedback forms, registration fields are also implemented. The main advantage of PHP is that programmers can compile dynamic pages very quickly and effortlessly.
As we have figured out the main purpose of PHP, let’s turn to the statistics to prove its popularity.
Who uses PHP
The share of known websites that use PHP as a server-side programming language accounts for 79%. Indeed, many large platforms are based on PHP. For example, the TED conference site creators and the Facebook developers used this programming language as the main tool. Wikipedia and BlaBlaCar have also chosen PHP to write Back-end.
The survey done by W3Techs shows the most popular PHP versions
According to GitHub, the most trending language is JavaScript and PHP is the 4th. However, do not think that the PHP influence is falling: the frequency of using PHP as a server-side language has only increased over the past 9 years, unlike ASP.NET. PHP is considered to be the fastest-growing programming language because most new sites that top the Google search results, have been built on it since February.
Comparison with Ruby and JavaScript.
As it can be seen from the histogram, there are 146 additional sites in the top 10 million on PHP are added daily since February 2019
When to use PHP
Thus, PHP is an excellent language for developing an interactive and user-friendly web application. In order not make unsubstantiated statements, we’d also like to show you what PHP is good for: please have a look at a few inspiring examples of software that can be designed using this development language:
- E-commerce. PHP provides great opportunities for creating e-business software by frameworks like Symfony, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, or Zend. That’s why there are so many popular e-commerce applications such as OpenCart, Zen Cart, Magento, which has been designed using PHP. Since most of the frameworks are open source, it saves money on development and support, and also provides increased functionality and smooth operation. Using PHP is also the fastest way to create your own shopping cart application due to such features as easy contacts obtaining.
- Business automation. PHP is commonly used for creating various CMS, CRM and ERP. Such systems make it possible to cut content dependence on markup. Clients can easily interact with an automated system without in-depth knowledge. The presence of a large number of solutions such as WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, written in PHP, opens up great opportunities for customizing the system for any needs. And there are various frameworks, which allow choosing the best one a high integration degree with high accuracy.
- Online community. Communities are not a complete substitute for real communication, but thousands of events, technologies and projects have become possible only through the people’s involvement in the Internet. Whatever your field of activity, users still need feedback, and sometimes simple email correspondence will not be enough. In this case, it is recommended to create online communities that allow consumers to feel connected with the company, get support and find like-minded people. Using PHP as a tool allows you to create a similar service from scratch. At the same time, phpBB, vBulletin, Pun BB are recommended for enhancing interactivity.
In addition to these applications, PHP development allows to create plugins for WordPress and dynamically add elements and pages. Actually, there are so many ways to reveal hidden opportunities of this language, but it depends on the context. If you want to develop software, first you should understand all special features to make sure that PHP is the right choice. We prepare a list of advantages that should be taken into account before you start the development process.
PHP features
- Low development costs. PHP is open source and distributed under the GPL license. It is good for quick creation of prototypes and ready-made sites. There is a large community of programmers who work with PHP and share their experiences. Therefore, there is a lot of useful PHP documentation, programming instructions, as well as free-access templates and examples.
- Simplicity. Since PHP is an embedded language, it is extremely flexible in relation to the developer needs. The PHP mechanism starts to execute the code after the first escape sequence, so there is no need to load the libraries or specify compilation parameters. A large variety of PHP functions also eliminate the need to write multi-line user functions in C.
- Compatibility. PHP is based on the C, Java and Perl languages. It supports data exchange between most languages in which websites are written. PHP inserts can easily be added to the existing HTML code in any place, and such pages will be processed correctly by the interpreter. Although PHP is usually recommended to be used in conjunction with HTML, it is equally well integrated into JavaScript, WML, XML, and other languages.
- Trouble-free support and simple website functionality extension. The functionality of your site can be easily expanded due to the abundance of extensions and libraries that are freely available on the Internet. There are also no difficulties in adding custom extensions created by PHP developers.
- Cross-platform. PHP is compatible with most operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OSX, etc. It also supports all servers leading in the number of installations (Apache, IIS, iPlanet, etc.).
- Advanced database support. A PHP characteristic feature is the simplicity of generating a page working with a database. The PHP scripting language supports the ODBC standard (Open Database Connection), which allows you to work with any database that supports this international standard. Thus, it is difficult to find a database that cannot be used with PHP.
- Easiness of Agile web applications creation. PHP services are well scaled and documented, simplifying applications maintenance and allowing them to evolve over time. By using this language, the development process can be easily divided into iterations; you can run modules at different times and then make amendments. The code itself is quite understandable and requires less time for analysis, and the use of PHP frameworks helps to create web applications in the shortest possible time. This makes PHP an excellent language for such a popular business type as outsourcing, which, by the way, Code Inspiration offers.
Implementation of all the global plans
Overall, it must be said that the growth of popularity of PHP and its frameworks in recent years has been maintained due to its cost-effectiveness, scalability and ease of use.
PHP is suitable for creating IT projects of any type separately or in combination with other technologies, but at the same time it must be remembered that the popularity of PHP is a double-edged sword. The ease and prevalence attract a lot of low-skilled developers. Therefore, choosing a PHP command requires special attention.
Code Inspiration has extensive experience in the development of PHP projects, especially its Symfony framework. With such experience, we know all insights and peculiarities, helping us make the developed by our team software solutions the best fit.
Contact us to convert your idea into PHP solution with our expert-level team.