Reasons For The Popularity Of PHP Scripting Language
According to web developers, PHP is a multipurpose scripting language that was designed for web development. It is used to enhance web pages. It was developed in 1994 but now, about 82.4% of all websites with known server-side programming language have at least one element of PHP in their codes.
Many web developers now make use of PHP to develop websites and the trend has become the order of the day. So, you may want to know why PHP has become so popular. Different sets of web developers were asked why they have chosen the language. These web developers gave different reasons and the reasons have been compiled and outlined below.
PHP can handle a lot of tasks
The language is useful for the execution of different types of web development tasks. One of them is that it helps web developers add dynamic content to websites. It is needless to remind you that dynamic content makes for better user experience.
A website with dynamic content is the one whose content depends on your input. You could say it is an interactive website. Membership sites that require your username and password are good examples. Examination sites are examples too. The most common examples are retail websites. As you add items to cart, it calculates your bill and this includes the shipping fee.
PHP can be used to modify files on the server
You can use the language to create, edit, or modify any of the files on the server and on the database. It can perform commands like create, open, read, and write. It can also be used to send and receive cookies. If you want to restrict access to certain parts of your website to only members, it is best and easiest done with the scripting language called PHP.
You may want to convert important data on your file to Excel or PDF files for easier analysis. PHP can pull the data and present it in both forms automatically so you won’t need to do any manual conversion. You can continue reading to see more important reasons why every developer should try PHP. There is reason many popular content management systems like Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress use PHP.
PHP is easy to learn
Although it can be used for complex codes, the language is quite easy to learn. The best part is that its syntax is similar to that of C and C++. This implies that programmers that are vast in both languages will be able to learn the language more easily.
Due to its popularity, you can get numerous free and paid resources on the language online. For example, it is said to be the fourth most tagged topic on StackOverflow. It currently has close to 2 million topics on it and more topics are still being added every week.
The language is fast
PHP codes can be executed relatively faster than other scripting languages. This is the reason why it is great for dynamic sites. Being embedded in HTML makes it also faster to develop. With PHP, you can easily edit or modify a website without rewriting everything from scratch.
It prevents compatibility issues
The language works on many platforms and it supports major browsers like Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer, and others. In addition, it also supports a lot of databases. When your website is developed with PHP, it’ll be mobile optimized because the language supports iOS, Android, and other mobile device platforms.
Apart from the benefits of PHP outlined above, there are other benefits too. If you’re a website developer and you’ve not tried PHP, you’re missing out big time. Try the language once and you’ll likely stick with it. To underscore the importance of the language, here are some interesting statistics about it.
Interesting statistics about PHP
After carrying out a survey that involved thousands of developers, the following figures were revealed and they buttress the importance and usefulness of PHP.
- It is currently the fifth most popular technology worldwide and the fact that 25.9% of the respondents of the survey use it confirms this.
- Front-end developers confirmed it to be the third most popular language.
- With back-end developers, PHP is the fourth most popular programming language.
- It is also the fourth most popular language with full-stack developers.
- About 8,000 PHP jobs are advertised worldwide every month.
- And these jobs come with an average salary of $66,000.
- In the United States alone, about 2,500 PHP jobs are advertised every month and these jobs have an average salary of $89,000.
It is a great all-purpose tool for web development language that every web developer should learn. This also means that you should make this a requirement when hiring web developers. Hire only the ones that have vast knowledge in PHP. Fortunately, many Indian website developers are proficient with this language.
As a conclusive summary, PHP is one of the best and most popular scripting languages because of the following facts:
- It is lucrative.
- PHP programmers are highly sought after and highly paid.
- The language is very easy to learn.
- It is fast to execute.
- It supports most platforms, databases, and browsers.
- It is quite easy to learn especially with the knowledge of either C or C++.
- It can be used to handle numerous tasks.
- It is can be sued to modify files on the server.
When next you want to hire website developers, opt for the ones with PHP knowledge.
