I'm not sure I get the significance of downloading PHP from the php.net site. I thought PHP was just a scripting language that can be written on any text editor. I come from a web design background, so it's not like I have to download HTML before I can start marking up pages. Insight?

    for starters, HTML isn't on the same level as PHP, it is simply a markup language, ie. it is interpreted by a client, no server processing is required. (not a programming language)

    PHP stands for, PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, meaning before apache (or IIS) sends you the HTML contents of a page, it processes it for any PHP code and translates that PHP into some other useful form of output, be it an image, or more HTML. In order for the server to do this it must have the PHP interpreter installed (this is what you download) so that the webserver knows HOW to turn:

    <?php echo 'Hello ' . $name; ?>

    into

    Hello Karl

    PHP is a server-side programming language, meaning it has no control over the browser like Javascript is capable of doing, it is merely used to render content for webpages, or interpret/validate/control access to data. And yes, there is no special editor or programming environment required to start programming in PHP, you simply need a webserver that has PHP support installed.

    Hope that helps.

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