PHP is a programming language for the creation of websites and high-load web applications. The largest resources written in PHP are Facebook (recognized as an extremist organization by the Russian government), VK and Wikipedia. The creation, updating and maintenance of PHP sites has been carried out by EDISON specialists on many occasions.
The language appeared in 1995. Rasmus Lerdorf of Denmark created a simple application based on Perl to analyse the number of visitors to the webpage hosting his resume; he called his invention Personal Home Page and released it for free download. When other people started to use the application the necessity for an update arose. The new tool created by Lerdorf in C became known as PHP2 and was already beginning to look like the PHP of today, which:
- Cooperates with many database management systems
- Automatically sends HTTP headers
- Works with cookies, sessions, and XForms
- Processes files uploaded to the server
- Has automatic form interpretation
- Works with local and remote files
With the help of PHP, developers can quickly and easily create and service web applications, develop highly configurable html pages, support websites' server sides, and integrate web applications with other software products.
Due to the popularity of the language, PHP programmers are in high demand. Nevertheless, PHP is easy to learn and some self-taught programmers even consider themselves specialists, the lack of any practical experience in using the language notwithstanding.
Updating a PHP site requires getting to grips with somebody else's code of unknown quality and is necessary in the following situations:
- The previous contractor hasn't finished the project
- Mistakes made by the previous contractor were discovered
- The resource has run its course
- New functions are needed
Web updates include:
- Website redesign
- Translation of website texts into another language
- Search engine optimisation (SEO)
- Elimination of errors caused by the load growth and operating the resource
- Addition of new functions (for example the creation of a product catalogue of payment by credit card)
- Reduction of response time
- Correction of data replication
- Error correction