Reasons to Choose PHP for Web Development

Today’s dynamic and interactive web pages are created using one of the many prominent technologies. Most web developers and development firms choose PHP to build their web applications.One of the major reasons behind this is, it is an open-source server-side scripting language that provides various features which help them create apps which match the expectations of big enterprises. It also supports multiple platforms and application servers.

If you are looking to build a web application, which is reliable, secure and efficient, you can leverage PHP to do so effortlessly.In this blog post, let us have a look at the reasons why anyone should choose PHP over other languages and why PHP is widely used for web app development. This post contains beginner level introductory material for any firm or developer looking into selecting an appropriate technology for developing web applications.

Why PHP?

: PHP is simple and very easy to learn

: PHP runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.)

: PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)

: PHP supports a wide range of databases

: PHP is free to download and use

: PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server-side

PHP supports more than 700 features, which eventually lessens the difficulty of programming. PHP also supports multiple databases such as Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server and MS Access.With PHP, you are not limited to output HTML. You can output images, PDF files. You can also output any textual data, such as JSON, XHTML and XML.

Various widely used CMS platforms like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress etc, and frameworks like CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Zend etc. and shopping carts like Magento, Zencart, Opencart, Oscommerce etc. are built using PHP.The above mentioned PHP frameworks provide multiple ways to accomplish your tasks quickly as they follow the organized MVC ( Model View Controller) pattern.

Those who want to develop a project rapidly by using well written libraries which are less prone to errors can leverage PHP frameworks for development. PHP frameworks are built using simple patterns that can be followed easily. Beginners can save plenty of time while developing projects using PHP frameworks. They will get sufficient community support in terms of resolving errors and developing high quality code

What Can PHP Do?

: PHP can generate dynamic page content

: PHP can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server

: PHP can collect form data

: PHP can send and receive cookies

: PHP can add, delete, modify data in your database

: PHP can be used to control user-access

: PHP can encrypt data

Let us now look at some of the main reasons why all the web developers choose PHP over other languages.

User-Friendly:

The core PHP syntax is extremely simple and the learning curve is very small for any aspiring web developer.

Flexibility:

PHP provides maximum level of flexibility when compared with ASP. Net, and is ideal for any user who wants to extend it to exactly match the custom requirements of their business. As it is an Open-source software, the user can write the code using any type of editor. PHP can be combined with diverse libraries such as graphics and XML etc.

Data Processing:

Developing a website using PHP, helps the user to add fast data processing capabilities and boost the website features quickly.

Open Source:

As PHP is a universally recognized open source language,it provides a multitude of solutions for any website development needs. One of the major reasons behind the success of PHP is that, it is a totally free software with a very simple syntax.

Cross Platform:

Since PHP works amazing on UNIX, LINUX and Windows platforms, it is very easy to develop cross-platform applications with PHP. It interfaces with Apache and MYSQL and if you are interested to develop a cross platform application, then, PHP is the best choice.

Failing to use Database Caching:

In your PHP application, are you using any database ? If so, make sure that you use some kind of database caching.

Continuing the use of MySQL Extension:

MySQL extension misses on few modern MYSQL features and is insecure and not reliable. It doesn’t support SSL. So, its better to opt for MYSQLi.

Not using PHP Data Objects(PDO):

MySQLi is indeed fast, reliable and secure, but is MySQL specific. So, it will be instead better to use PDO. Doing so, allows you to use object-oriented syntax and it will also make you ready for other SQL databases.PDO enables using of named parameters and it would save a lot of time by allowing you to inject the fetched data into a new object.

PHP web development will continue to gain popularity in the near and distant future. Coding on a language like PHP will surely be a breeze if some of the commonly made mistakes are avoided. We hope that the information we shared above have spurred on some new ideas regarding PHP.
As always, please share your thoughts as comments. Thanks.

Posted by admin Posted on 2017-01-03