PHP Introduction

PHP Three letters that together constitutes the name of one of the world’s most popular programming languages for Web development, the PHP Hypertext Preprocessor.

While you might chuckle at the greenness of the recursive acronym, statistics indicate that PHP is not be taken lightly: the language is today in use on over twenty million Web sites and more than a third of the world’s Web servers-no small feat, especially when you consider that the language has been developed entirely by a worldwide community of volunteers and is freely available on the Internet at no cost whatsoever!

Over the last few years, PHP has become the de facto choice for the development of data-driven Web applications, notably on account of its scalability, ease of use, and widespread support for different databases and data formats.

This first chapter will gently introduce you to the world of PHP, by taking you on a whirlwind tour of PHP’s history and features, and then guiding you through writing and executing your first PHP program So flip the page, and let’s get Started.

PHP History

PHP was orginally created by a developer named Rasmus Lerdorf.