Advantages and Disadvantages of PHP
You may have wondered what the advantages of PHP are and why we should choose PHP as our programming language in web design. In this article, we are going to examine this important question. To answer this question, you need to know the advantages of PHP over other programming languages. So, stay with us in the rest of this article to know the benefits of the PHP programming language over other server-side programming languages.
Knowing and reviewing the benefits of PHP
Many programming languages, such as ASP, python, etc., are active in web design. However, the PHP programming language always comes out victorious in competing with these programming languages. Among the most essential advantages of PHP, the following can be mentioned:
- Created for web design.
- The text is open and free.
- It has a large and active community.
- It has a wide range of applications in the web domain.
- It supports different programming paradigms.
- It is multi-platform.
- It has many documents and learning resources.
- It has more job opportunities than other programming languages.
- It is easy to maintain.
In the rest of this article, we will examine each of the advantages of the PHP language.
The PHP language was created for web design.
Danish Rasmus Lerdorf designed the PHP language in 1994 to manage his website. The language has been expanded and developed in line with this goal. Therefore, the functions and commands defined in PHP have been created specifically for web design. You will not need to get acquainted with many unrelated and unnecessary programming terms when applying and using them.
The PHP language is open-source and free.
PHP is a completely free programming language, which gives it a relative advantage over other programming languages such as ASP. You can use PHP without spending money, and if you are satisfied with it, you can use it regularly.
What Does Open Source Mean?
Another feature that we mentioned is that PHP is “open source”. Being open source means the program’s source code is available to the public, and there is no need to get a license or spend money to use that source code. This feature makes the source code of the PHP language easily available to different users and developers worldwide, reviewed by them, and eventually improved.
Maybe you are wondering why this feature should be important for us. It may be that the open-source of a language is meaningless and unimportant to you, and you think to yourself, “I just want to write code, and my work will go on, and I don’t care how the code wants to be executed and what is behind the scenes of these codes.” It passes. However, this view is completely wrong and extremely dangerous for a programmer.
The open-source language is considered a great advantage from the point of view of professional and experienced programmers. Because in the future, it is possible to develop a programming language based on different user needs or with the project’s expansion. The best example of the importance of this feature is Facebook’s development of PHP. Facebook was originally designed using PHP. Still, with its development and expansion, the Facebook programming team found the need to develop PHP, so they created the HACK programming language. (This feature shows the high scalability of the PHP programming language)
PHP has a wide range of applications in the web domain
PHP programming plays a key and fundamental role in the web world. According to the official statistics of the W3Techs site, until 2018, about 83.1% of the world’s sites were launched based on PHP. On the other hand, content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc., are built using the PHP language, among which WordPress alone accounts for 32% of the world’s sites. It is also interesting to know that, according to the statistics of the official PHP website, the PHP language has been used in more than 240 million websites so far.
The PHP language has played a role in the development and creation of large sites such as Facebook, Wikipedia, Yahoo, etc., and is the owner of the best web development frameworks, including Laravel, Symphony, Code Igniter, etc. This factor shows that the scope of PHP applications in the web domain is very large and widespread. Therefore, by learning the PHP language, you can learn PHP-based tools faster and develop them according to your users’ needs.
PHP is Multi Paradigm
Another strength of the PHP language is its multi-paradigm nature. But before we talk about the advantages of this feature of the PHP language, you should know what a paradigm means.
Paradigms are different methods used in programming to find the best way to perform certain operations and tasks. Each programming language can support one or more paradigms or methods.
Multi-platform PHP is one of the best advantages of PHP
Another advantage of PHP is the multi-platform or cross-platform nature of this language, which allows you to run PHP without any problems on a Windows server, a Macintosh server, or a Linux server. The previous section stated that the result of PHP code is sent to the user’s browser as HTML.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter what kind of system the user uses. He won’t need to install any add-ons or additional software to run them; having a web browser is enough for them. Therefore, using PHP will not impose any restrictions on you or the users.
On the other hand, PHP is fully compatible with most of the world’s famous web servers, including Apache HTTP Server, Nginx, etc. PHP also supports most of the world’s famous databases, including database management systems such as MySQL, MongoDB, SQLite, etc.
Easy PHP training is one of the best features of this programming language.
PHP is easier to learn than other server-side languages for those who want to experience coding for the first time. Its popularity and many uses in web design have caused this programming language to attract the attention of many people, which has led to many documents and training in the form of virtual training, face-to-face classes, books, etc.
The official PHP documentation is a great resource for starting to learn PHP. Of course, to use the documentation on the official PHP site, you must be familiar with the English language.
There are many PHP job opportunities.
Certainly, one of the important factors in choosing a programming language is job opportunities and the extent of the job market for programmers in that language. Therefore, it should be pointed out that more than 32% of the world’s sites are built on the WordPress content management system, which is based on PHP.
This is why the programming market is in dire need of PHP experts. So if you choose PHP, now there is a very special opportunity for you to be attracted to the job market in this field.
Finally, why choose the PHP language?
PHP has a huge share of the web market. On the other hand, it is a free and open-source language that supports different paradigms, web servers, and the best databases in the world. In addition, PHP has a good job market, and experts in this language are never unemployed. The Future of PHP podcast explores this topic well. Therefore, PHP is one of the best options for entering the world of web programming. What is your opinion? Are the benefits that PHP provides to programmers what set it apart from other programming languages
