Despite the fact that the global IT community has long predicted a decline in PHP, today about 80% of all websites use it as a server language. Out of 10 thousand of the world’s busiest websites, 56% choose PHP.
Thanks to such popularity, a beginner doesn’t even need to write code, as examples of it can always be found on the Internet. Thus, a beginner is unlikely to encounter a problem that cannot be solved.
In addition, PHP has a large non-corporate application sector that can be easily entered by a beginner even with minimal knowledge, as well as a significant freelance market. PHP is one of the easiest programming languages to learn and is well suited for beginners with basic knowledge of computer networks and programming.
PHP is used in many areas of development today.
Web development. Originally developed for creating web pages, PHP allows you to create websites with intuitive and responsive design quickly and easily. PHP’s functionality, such as integration with HTML, good compatibility with various databases, security, and user-friendly interface, contributes to the convenience of web development.
In today’s ecosystem, every web page requires a high level of customization and should provide a highly interactive user interface. Since PHP scripts run on the server, a page with HTML code can be created in a dynamic manner. And site visitors deal with customized pages without encountering scripts.
E-commerce. This is another big area where PHP offers many easy ways to create products. Many popular online platforms such as OpenCart, Zen Cart, Magento, PrestaShop, and Ubercart are made with PHP.
Enterprise software. Enterprise software includes content management systems (CMS), customer relationship management systems (CRM), resource management systems (ERP), and other tools for managing enterprise assets. The use of PHP for enterprise software development is gaining momentum due to its flexibility, easy integration, and various payment options.
Database development. Writing a database in PHP is greatly simplified by using special extensions or connecting to one of the databases that support the ODBC standard. PHP provides support for various databases, including MySQL, Oracle and MS Access (more than 20 in total), and can also be used to prepare unique databases. PHP is characterized by the simplicity of generating a page that works with the database.
Mobile applications. Today, you can see few self-sufficient applications, most of them rely on backend services. The server part of the application is responsible for combining various data from the mobile device, user behavior patterns, saving user settings, etc. Several PHP frameworks, such as Symfony and Laravel, are well suited for building the backend of mobile apps.
Given the ease of learning PHP, open source software, wide scope, and a large number of websites written in PHP, this language can be considered a good option for starting in IT.