Understanding PHP

shadowlrd

I am very new to PHP coding but I am very unclear on what it can do? What can it do, and what are its advantages over other coding languages?

peterjaz

wow, that's a lot of info you're requesting. you should really consider looking at a few books or reading some intros and tutorials. let me say that it's the first advanced programming language that i've tackled and it's fantastic for web applications. if you want to talk to a database, dynamically generate pages, create web based programs or simply rotate random images on a web page, php is the king. it's a server side application that runs quickly and powerfully and best of all it's free. i found a great tutorial at adultnetsurprise.com. check out the training section and look for PHP tutorial. it's a great online course. good luck.

shadowlrd

thank you for your input

alcapone

what can it do? I guess more than you'll need. PHP, in combination with *sql, gives possibility to build a portal of any size and at the same time isn't difficult to learn. PHP's main page shows the growth of php language in the net:
http://www.php.net/usage.php
and numbers are quite impressive.
Advantages:
among the obvious ones, is that
its easy easy to learn
code is clear for understanding and maintaining
its been said that php is faster than major league languages
with this new feature, GTK-PHP, it might be coming to the offline life soon
php is compatable with most db's
generating graphics on-the-fly is also a pretty good feature

as I say, these are some obvious reasons why to choose php over other languages, but the best is to know several and being able to learn a new language in the matter of days by applaying you previous knowleges.

cheers,
AlCapone