Adam Jimenez | Why Choose PHP?

Why Choose PHP?

There are a fair few choices of server side languages to choose from the grandaddy perl to relatively new trendy languages like ruby or python. Somewhere in the middle is PHP.

PHP is open source and has been ported to many operating systems including linux. windows and mac. This open source philosophy extends to a wealth of free resources including tutorials, classes and components. There is some fantastic open source PHP software such as phpBB, phpMyAdmin and JpGraph. This is in stark contrast to the closed source ASP which many basic components are paid-for.

PHP is a C-based language so if you have any experience with C or other C-based languages like JavaScript you should find the syntax easy to learn. Debugging is normally pretty easy as error messages are straight-forward and clearly identity where and what error occurred.

PHP is all about rapid application development. There are a number of built-in extensions and out-of-the-box you can use PHP to manipulate images, send emails, execute shell commands and much much more.

The hardest thing about PHP is learning all the different functions - there are thousands of them. And they don't all follow the same naming convention e.g. addslashes() / str_replace(). Luckily the php.net website is at hand. It provides comprehensive easy-to-follow documentation on all functions with clear examples. There is also a lot of crucial information and sample code in the comments.

In summary PHP is a great choice. It's free, well-supported and easy to learn. Long live PHP!

07/05/2009 permalink | Posted in web development | 15 Comments »