PHP

Pros

• Flexible language can support various types of projects
• Easy to learn and a low barrier to entry
• Lots of developers available
• Great documentation
• Large community support and knowledge base

Cons

• Development can be chaotic due to multiple ways of doing the same task
• Not a high-performing language

PHP is a programming language that is used for web servers and object-oriented development.

Features of PHP

PHP gained popularity as a web development language due to its compatibility with HTML. Besides HTML, PHP is compatible with a lot of other languages like C++ and Python. In the beginning, PHP was an acronym for “Personal Home Page”. But today it stands for Hypertext Preprocessor.

PHP is easily extensible. So a lot of developers enthusiastically contribute to adding features to the language. This opportunity to contribute has led to volunteers and supporters becoming life-long fans of the language.

Web developers use PHP to create interactivity. They combine it with HTML to develop applications like emails, shopping carts, forums, and messaging systems. PHP can be used to design fast prototypes which can be later turned into production-level applications. So PHP is being used for projects of all sizes.

Programmers like PHP because it’s easy to learn. Also, there is a large community who supports various development environments. You can also use the large knowledge base to find solutions for your problems. There is a number of PHP scripts already available.

PHP is an open source project. It’s free for commercial and non-commercial products. As more enterprises start using open source tools, they are adopting PHP as one of their core languages for development. For example, Facebook, Wikipedia, Tumblr, Yahoo, and Flickr are using PHP.

PHP is used for server-side scripting, command line scripting and desktop applications. It supports a wide range of databases and protocols like LDAP, IMAP, POP3, HTTP, and COM. So developers can use PHP for almost any type of application.

However, PHP isn't a high-performance language. It’s considered slow compared to other programming languages. So developers need to be careful about when to use PHP.

Conclusion

Over the years, due to its easy deployability and easy learning curve, PHP has amassed a large number of developers. This has led to more projects which in turn has led to more developers learning the language. The cycle has created a loop that keeps increasing the popularity of PHP. However, its performance has always been a concern among the development community. Before starting any project with PHP, teams should carefully consider the various issues and hurdles.

Pros

• Flexible language can support various types of projects
• Easy to learn and a low barrier to entry
• Lots of developers available
• Great documentation
• Large community support and knowledge base

Cons

• Development can be chaotic due to multiple ways of doing the same task
• Not a high-performing language