hi every body. i am new to php i want to ask some basic questions to clear my concepts regard php i hope u ppl will help me Plz explain what PHP is? What is the reason for the popularity of PHP as a web development platform on today’s web? Do I need to install anything on my computer to be able to use PHP? Which web servers are compatible with PHP?
I suggest you this website: http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp and to find more websites by google.
PHP is server side web scripting language The reason I think it became popular is because, It is free, opensource, most web hosting providers support PHP You definitely need to install PHP to run it on your computer, the easiest way is, you download either xampp or wamp (google it ) it is compatible with apache , IIS
try to buy a good book about PHP. forums are not a good place to learn from, if you want to grow, realy. they are good for opinions, but risky sometimes. PHP is opensource (free), very powerful, can do a lot of things you can't with simple XHTML+CSS. vital for many/most applications
There are plenty of online tutorials, for free - you dont need to buy any books. Most of the documentation on php.net will show you code snippets of how you use functions that you can use and modify to learn how it works.