Introduction
Getting a website or a web app developed for your business is a must these days. It is one of the best ways to mark your online presence and target a wider group of people, even the ones, that are away from your demographic location. It is one of the primary steps towards expanding your business and taking it globally.
However, just getting a mediocre website developed won’t suffice your purpose. Choosing the right technology for web development is very much important. There are several technologies available in the market, and entrepreneurs often get confused while choosing the right one for their project. PHP is one such technology that is available and is one of the top choices of the companies offering web development services.
A little more about PHP
Hypertext Preprocessor, commonly known as PHP, is one of the most popular scripting languages among web developers. Created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, this language is widely used to develop highly scalable and robust websites and web apps.
PHP is used to develop websites for all major operating systems such as Linux, Unix variants, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, etc. The web developer has the freedom to choose any operating system and a web server depending on the website that needs to be made and the business type. This programming language is mainly focused on server-side scripting, command-line scripting, and writing desktop applications.
Benefits of using PHP
The websites developed using PHP are fast, secure, and highly reliable. This is one of the main reasons why PHP development services are in such high demand.
This language is one of the top picks for creating corporate websites, be it e-commerce, static blog, social networking, etc. Developers love using this language because of its simple formats, techniques, and features. Here are some of the benefits which PHP offers:
- Cross-platform
- Easy to use
- Easy to learn
- Built-in-functions
- Secure
- Reliable
- Efficient
- User-friendly
- Easy to integrate
PHP has quite many benefits, but these were some of the few which really attracts both developers and entrepreneurs towards it.
Now when you know about what PHP is and the benefits of choosing PHP, for your next website development project, let’s talk about what makes PHP stand out from the other programming languages.
Pillars of Modern PHP
The only thing which is constant in this world is change. With time, everything changes, and so is the case with technologies. Technologies are continuously evolving and trying to keep up with the pace of this fast-changing world.
If we talk about PHP, since its launch, it has evolved a lot. With the change in users’ demand and requirements, the website always has to be updated. Based on the past challenges and feedbacks given, even PHP has changed a lot. PHP used today is much more evolved and is a better version to create functional and robust websites. There were many new features that were added to the PHP version 7.4 and to all other essential releases.
Let us now read about the essential pillars of modern PHP in detail:
1. Code
For any website to work efficiently, a proper code is required. Writing code in PHP is very simple. An ideal code should be under version control. Also, we recommend PHP developers to take help from Git due to its widespread availability across the board. Keeping the code open-source is also recommended. PHP offers easy to maintain code, which is very much essential.
2. Test
Everyone wants a website that runs smoothly and is error-free. So after the code is written developers constantly test that code to ensure that the end result is bug-free. Testing the code at each stage is one of the easiest ways to speed up the development process. It makes PHP development a lot easier for the developers working on it. An error-free website helps in retaining users.
3. Dependencies
Dependency basically refers to when a piece of software depends or relies on others. In PHP the code is highly dependent on the specific library or a package. In order to overcome this problem, developers use a dependency injection pattern that can help them change such dependencies when the program is compiled or run.
If we talk about dependency injection, in much simpler terms it can be described as an approach that allows developers to avoid such hard-coding dependencies and facilitates changing them at both, runtime and compile time. This saves a lot of time and makes code easy to test and maintain.
4. Configuration
This comes handy when you are looking to migrate your website or an app. If badly configured, migration can be difficult. The PHP configuration file, php.ini, is the best and the fastest way to affect PHP’s functionality.
Each time PHP is initialized this file is read. If we talk about the server module versions of PHP, this configuration happens only a single time that too, when the web-server is started. Therefore, writing the configuration file correctly is very important, if you want your code to be executed properly. So, if you are looking for getting your website or app developed using PHP, you must hire PHP developers, having both experience and expertise in developing a variety of software using this language.
Here are the examples of some good and bad configuration:
5. Runtime Data
Runtime data refers to the data, which is directly created by the user itself, while using an application or a website like file uploads, images, etc. This runtime data is required to be collected and used while the programs are being used. With so many advancements in the technology and digital transformation, this runtime data is now stored using cloud computing. Earlier this storage was being handled by local or network-attached file systems.
6. Scalability
This is one of the most important factors to consider while choosing the right technology for your website or app development projects. As your business grows, you need your website or application to be updated and scalable. Some languages and frameworks may give some error and may require a lot of rework to be done, for scaling your software.
However, when it comes to PHP, it is one of the most used languages, which is known to create scalable and robust websites and apps for your business. No matter how much workload is added, the performance of the program, created using PHP, is not affected at all. You must look out for PHP experts who can help you in successfully scaling up your website and application. If you are unsure of how to hire the right PHP developers for your project, you must look out for guides, which can help you in making your choice.
7. Deployment
Choosing the right language which can be easily deployed is very important. Once the developer has written the code and testers or quality analysts have tested it, the code is ready for deployment. Although this process is not easy, and developers face some of the challenges, not only during initial deployment but also, sometimes during implementing the latest updates. However, a proficient PHP development company knows how to do it in the most efficient way.
Conclusion
These were the top 7 pillars of modern PHP development, which makes this scripting language one of the most used development languages and also, one of the most popular programming languages among the developers. PHP is very easy to use and learn language and has a quite simple syntax, which speeds up the development process. Developers can develop highly scalable, robust, and fully functional websites and apps using a large number of libraries and packages available for this language.
If you are also looking to mark your online presence and planning to get a website or web app for your business, you may consider this flexible language for your project development, and we are sure it won’t disappoint you.
