PHP in Web Application Development

PHP is Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) used on the server side whose constructions are inserted into the HTML text. In 2003 a new version PHP 5.0 based on Zend Engine 2 (Zend Technologies Ltd) was released. It gives web application developers an option to create full-scale applications. Starting from Version 5 this language can be called object-oriented. PHP is an open source program product, so it’s free and web developers can create their own language extensions.

PHP capabilities

• Supported platforms Win32 (9x/NT/2000/XP), UNIX, OS/2, QNX, MacOS, BeOS, OCX;
• Compatibility with servers: Apache (Win32, UNIX), phttpd, fhttpd, thttpd, ISAPI(Zeus, IIS), NSAPI, Roxen/Caudium, AOLServer;
• Supported technologies COM, XML, Java, CORBA, WDDX, Macromedia Flash;
• Developed functionality for working with network connections;
• Support more than 20 databases (Adabas D, InterBase, PostgreSQL, dBase, FrontBase, SQLite, mSQL, FilePro, Direct MS-SQL, MySQL, Unix, dbm, Oracle, DBX) and has developed functionality for working with them;
• Possibility to create full-scale object oriented applications;
• Comparatively simple syntax and the convenience in practical usage;
• Free of charge;
• Code openness thanks to which PHP software developers can create their own language extensions.

PHP is an extremely popular application development language for general usage although it was created specially for web development.  In general it has the syntax similar to the syntax of C, Java and Perl. However, it’s much simpler. PHP differs greatly from other programming languages by its simplicity. Thus while developing an application PHP web developers don’t have to consider numerous details which ‘spoil’ the life of programmers on Perl and C++ and to think about the rights to access script files, don’t have to prescribe the exact ways to various modules, and so on. 

PHP allows separating HTML text from the executing part and thus it becomes possible to reduce considerably time expenses for the project development. In most cases the speed of promoting the projects created on PHP will be higher than while using other programming languages.  
Although this technology is simple enough its capabilities allows PHP web developers using it for creating powerful and highly effective web applications. It all helps PHP to dominate among other competitors.