If you have spent the better part of the last few years on the Internet, you may have already chanced upon the term PHP. You may have even encountered the definition: a server-side scripting language. But what exactly does it mean? And more importantly, what use can it be to you as an aspiring Web developer or Web designer?
Going back to the definition for a little while, PHP is indeed a server-side scripting language that is typically used in the creation of dynamic Web pages. It is a relatively easy to learn programming language that enables you to feature more dynamic content on your web sites.
PHP is different from other types of programming languages in that it is designed to work in conjunction with HTML. This compatibility is a distinct advantage of PHP and allows you to easily integrate it into web pages that have already been extensively rendered with HTML. This integration is in fact so seamless that you can quite readily switch between the two languages even within the same web document.
How this while thing works is basically like this: web sites are typically designed with a combination of PHP and HTML in varying proportions depending on the...