What is PHP Development?

PHP is a server-side scripting language. It is mainly used for web development. PHP has been used widely as a general-purpose programming language. The term PHP originally meant Personal Home Page. However, nowadays it means Hypertext Preprocessor.

Zend Engine powers the standard PHP interpreter, which is free software released under the licence of PHP. Zend Engine works as a runtime engine as well as the PHP compiler. It first compiles PHP Script into virtual machine Zend Opcode. It then executes opcodes and at the same time generates results in Web Server.

PHP is a highly portable server-side scripting language and you can deploy the same in almost any web server on practically all kinds of platforms and operating systems at absolutely free of charge. This scripting language has gained immense popularity among developers because it enables them to build dynamic websites.

It reached its first zenith in the year 2009 when it was first used in over 27,000,000 domains. Currently production of PHP reference implementation is done by The PHP Development Team. However, it was in the year 1994 that Rasmus Lerdorf created PHP.

Initially, PHP server-side scripting language started its journey and also evolved without having any formal written specification. It was only in 2014 that a formal written standard specification came into existence. The work for formally creating PHP specification also started in 2014.

When PHP is discussed, another term comes into discussion and that is MySQL. It is a powerful open source database server, which was built on the basis of a RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). Developers can combine PHP and MySQL for building powerful as well as scalable wide array of internet, web, and/or intranet applications. PHP as well as MySQL are called development tools. If the developers are able to create applications properly with the help of PHP as well as MySQL then users can not only enjoy simple as well as clean usability but also scalability, power, speed, and complex functionalities.