7 Awesome & Unknown Facts about PHP, which should make you go Awe!
There is no need to say that PHP is one of the most popular programming languages across the globe. It is widely used for web development by the new as well as experienced programmers due to its advanced and easy to use features.
The most exciting part of PHP is that it is easy to learn than other programming languages. Furthermore, it comes with various impressive benefits, such as:
- It is an open-source language making it free to utilize
- It is extensible in nature
- It is platform-independent and can run on most of the platforms
- It supports a large amount of database
- It has low development and maintenance cost
- It is highly reliable and offers the best performance
With the availability of such unraveling benefits, you might not hesitate to hire PHP programmer who will help you to develop a suitable PHP-based platform where your app could function well.
In this article, we will discuss some critical and unknown facts about PHP, which should be known by the developers present across the globe.
Why Developers Still Admire PHP?
PHP is an active server-side scripting language for 79% of the website. Besides, there has been a tremendous increase in the use of PHP in creating iterative and user-friendly web applications.
It has created a wide range of opportunities for the developers to create a web application based on the given language and utilize its efficiency to a greater extent.
Next, we will present some of the unknown facts of PHP, which should be known to the developers:
A. The Initial Purpose of PHP was for Something Else
PHP today is a major programming language for building effective web applications. Believe it or not, it was not intended to build as a programming language. Instead, it was designed to manage the personal home page for its inventor, Rasmus Lerdorf.
However, over the years, it changed from its previous form to the present form as a server-side programming language, Hypertext Preprocessor, as it is known in the world today.
An Astounding fact, what do you say?
B. There are Restriction in PHP also
Contrary to popular belief, PHP is not free. It also comes with some restrictions. One notable restriction is that it is not distributed under General Public Licenses (GPL).
It implies that the product created or derived from PHP first needs to have to get permission from the PHP group so to utilize its coding efficiently. Due to GPL, PHP-based product could not use PHP in their names.
Besides, PHP restrictions also include remote files because if they get executed, then it will make the installation of the PHP language difficult and will delete everything on the system.
C. PHP Daemon: It can also be used as Background Server Language
Although PHP is mostly used for writing codes for frontend, not many people know that it can also be used for as background server language. How? It is possible through PHP Daemon.
First of all, what are Daemons? Actually, these are background processes that keep running without user interaction. So with the help of it, PHP has been able to handle and analyze data.
How do they work? The answer is that they are not executed by web server but from the command line PHP interpreter with no interaction with the web-server.
However, one question arises: “Who executes background scripts if there is no web-server?”
These scripts needed to be executed at a regular time interval, and this can be possible if the script itself iterates and never stop in the form of the daemon.
D. PHP can be utilized in Every Operating System
Initially, the designing of PHP was done to create dynamic and interactive web pages. However, with time, it has now been utilized in most operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and so on.
Although PHP is utilized in almost all the major operating systems, it is Linux, where it finds its major application.
E. Object-Orientation and PHP Go Hand in Hand
In the past, it was unimaginable that object-oriented programming (OOP) will be part of PHP. But now, OOP is fully realized in PHP. Other than Java, no other programming language has such benefits as with PHP.
Besides, PHP has a single package manager called Composer, which is excellent and easy to pull in other written and maintained libraries in the most effective manner. Due to it, a large open-source project can work together in a better way.
F. PHP is the Running Platform for significant Websites and Popular Brands
Almost 80% of the websites run on PHP, which is a relatively known fact. What many people not know is that various biggest known brands in the market also develop their base on PHP-based platforms.
Notable of them include Facebook, Flickr, Yahoo, TED, and others, which are powered by PHP. On the other hand, various popular sites such as Wikipedia, Twitter, Weibo, Quora also use PHP.
Why is it so? The answer lies in the fact that PHP has flexible features that make it suitable for any platform. An exciting piece of information, what do you say?
G. Funny Story behind PHP Mascot
Most of the programming languages have some lucky mascot, and PHP is not an exception. Its mascot is an adorable blue elephant that has been strategically modified to “elePHPant.”
Its creation is entangled with a funny incident. Its creator, Vincent Pontier came to the given idea from the writing of letter PHP, which formed the shape of an elephant. Thus, the real logo of PHP came into existence in the funniest way.
Final Note
The given article has clearly assured that PHP is ruling the world of web development. What’s more, the presence of unknown facts has paved the way for PHP to show its funny side to the world.
So, the time has come for you to contact a leading PHP Web Development Company and get a robust and user-friendly web application at your doorstep.