Tech talk: PHP

Overview
 Web Development Trends
 What is PHP ?
 MVC Frameworks
 Mobile Web Apps
 Command Line PHP
 Sites Using PHP
 Pros
 Cons
 References

Web Development Trends
 PHP
 Ruby (on Rails)
 Python (Django)
 ASP.NET
 JavaScript (Ajax, Node.js, AngularJS, Backbone.js,
Ember.js etc)
 Java
 Perl
 Scala (Play Framework)
 Erlang
 Clojure
 Groovy/Grails etc

What is PHP?
 PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting, so
you can do anything any other CGI program can do,
such as collect form data, generate dynamic page
content, or send and receive cookies.
 The best things in using PHP are that it is extremely
simple for a newcomer, but offers many advanced
features for a professional programmer.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
 Development started in 1994, by Rasmus Lerdorf.
 Server-side scripting language
 Interpreted language
 Multi-platform (Linux, *nix, Windows)
 Syntax resembles C and Perl
 Simpler and faster to develop in (than C and Perl
or Java)
 Fast, flexible and pragmatic

Where does PHP fit ?
Web Browser
Internet or
Intranet
page
Web
HTTP
Request
Page
Web
page
Web
Server
server
Added
function
ality
Added
function
ality
Client-side
“Active pages”
JavaScript, VBScript,
Applet, ActiveX
Server-side
“Dynamic pages”
CGI, SSI, Server
API, ASP, JSP, PHP,
COM/DCOM,
CORBAActive and dynamic page technology
can be used together – server-side
program generates customized active
pages.

Putting it all together
Web-Client
Web-Server
DBMS
Database
Output
SQL
commands
PHP
HTML-Form
(+JavaScript)
Reply
WWW
Submit
Data
Call PHP
interpreter
Response Response
LAN
Web-Browser
Database
Server

PHP – MVC Frameworks
Model-View-Controller (MVC)
Yii
CakePHP
CodeIgniter
Symfony
Zend Framework
Kohana
many others

PHP – Mobile Web Apps
 Common to use server-side PHP to develop Mobile
Web Apps or Hybrid Apps
 Reuse php web site backend components and logic
 Enjoy the advantages of PHP
 Eg.
PHP Yii Framework
+
jQuery Mobile
(or any mobile web app framework)

Command Line PHP
 What is this good for:
 Parsing files to put into a database
 Ideal for scripts regularly executed using cron (on
*nix or Linux) or Task Scheduler (on Windows).
 Anything you use a shell script or perl script to do
 Variables of use:
 $argc, $argv[]
 $stdin, $stdout, $stderr

Sites using PHP
 Yahoo, Facebook, Google, YouTube, eBay, Flickr,
Zynga, Wikipedia, Craiglist, Digg
 Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Nokia, China Mobile,
 Wordpress sites (CMS), Drupal sites (CMS)
 etc

PHP - Pros
 Open source, completely free
 Specifically designed for Web Development /
Developers
 Excellent documentation
 Simplicity, Easy to learn, including frameworks
 Largest community support
 Multi-platforms
 Easy deployment (just copy the files)
 Easy to scale up and out
 Readily available pool of talents/coders

PHP - Pros
 Rapid prototyping, fast development time
 Lightweight, low overheads
 Fast execution time
 Silo process, loosely coupled
 Highly configurable
 Procedural / Object Oriented programming
 Extensive libraries / modules
 Support wide range of interfaces (DB, Outputs,
Protocols, Caching etc)

PHP - Cons
 Best used with caching stack
 Not thread-safe
 Less efficient multithreading support
 No strong standards of coding style
 Flexible, many ways to accomplished same task
 Not strongly typed, implicit conversion
 Not particularly sexy
 No built-in scheduler
 Not good for GUI or desktop apps

References
 www.php.net
 pecl.php.net
 pear.php.net
 www.yiiframework.com
 cakephp.org
 www.codeigniter.com

Tech talk: PHP

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