PHP Introduction

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PHP is a powerful server-side scripting language designed for web development. It was originally created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf as “Personal Home Page” tools, and later evolved into PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

Key Features of PHP

Open-source and free to use.
Cross-platform (works on Windows, Linux, macOS).
Supports most popular databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MongoDB).
Can generate dynamic page content.
Can handle forms, cookies, sessions, and file uploads.
Supports object-oriented and procedural programming.
Has a vast ecosystem of frameworks and CMS (Laravel, WordPress, Drupal).

Tip: PHP is one of the easiest languages to start backend development with.

PHP Flow Diagram

[Client Browser] ---> [Request: index.php] ---> [Server with PHP Engine]
                                     |
                              [PHP Code Executes]
                                     |
                            [HTML + CSS + JS Output]
                                     |
                          <--- Sent back to Browser

Installing PHP on Your System

You cannot run PHP by double-clicking the file. You need a server environment with PHP installed.

Popular Installation Packages

Package	Platform	Details
XAMPP	Windows, Linux, macOS	Includes Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl. Easy for beginners.
WAMP	Windows	Windows + Apache + MySQL + PHP. Lightweight alternative to XAMPP.
LAMP	Linux	Linux + Apache + MySQL/MariaDB + PHP. Most common on servers.
MAMP	macOS	macOS + Apache + MySQL + PHP. For Mac developers.

Note: If you don’t want to install servers locally, you can use online editors or Docker containers with PHP images.

PHP Example

<?php
  // Simple PHP Example
  echo "Welcome to PHP Introduction!";
?>

Why Learn PHP in 2025?

Still powers ~75% of websites with a known server-side language.
Large job market for PHP + Laravel developers.
Ideal for small projects, quick prototypes, and CMS development.
Works smoothly with frontend frameworks (React, Vue, Angular) via APIs.

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