Chapter 1. What Is PHP—And Why Should I Care?

What Is PHP—And Why Should I Care?

One of the first things most people want to know about PHP is what the initials stand for. Then they wish they had never asked. Officially, PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. It's an ugly name that gives the impression that it's strictly for nerds or propellerheads. Nothing could be further from the truth.

PHP is a scripting language that brings websites to life in the following ways:

  • Sending feedback from your website directly to your mailbox

  • Uploading files through a web page

  • Generating thumbnails from larger images

  • Reading and writing to files

  • Displaying and updating information dynamically ...

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