An introduction.
WHAT IT IS
A programming language designed for building websites and web applications.
WHERE IT RUNS
On the server, producing output sent to the browser.
WHAT THAT MEANS
The visitor never sees your PHP. They see what it produced.
WHY IT REMAINS DOMINANT
An enormous proportion of the web runs on it It is available on almost every host The ecosystem is vast It has improved substantially
THAT LAST POINT
Modern PHP bears little resemblance to the language people criticised fifteen years ago.
WHAT IT IS GOOD AT
Web applications Content systems APIs Anything request-driven
WHAT IT IS NOT FOR
Long-running processes, traditionally Work inside the browser
WHERE IT RUNS ON YOUR HOSTING
Every cPanel account, with a selectable version.
WHAT TO LEARN FIRST
Variables, conditions, loops, functions and arrays.
Then how requests and responses work.
