Terms

HTML: Computing Hypertext Markup Language, a system for tagging text les to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on web pages. PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce a certain type of web pages, called dynamic web pages. Server-Side: refers to operations that are performed by the server in a client server relationship. Client-Side: refers to operations that are performed by the client in a clientserver relationship MySQL: the world's most used open source relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. Database: a structured set of data held in a computer Open-Source: software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modied. Script: a program written for a command interpreter or another scripting language. Dynamic: Web pages that are updated frequently. Server: an application, operating system, computer, or appliance to run one or more services Coding: the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging / troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. Computer Language: an articial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine. Content Management System (CMS): a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content from a central interface.

Why it is the best choice

PHP

Sources
Stevenson, Angus, and Christine A.
Lindberg. New Oxford American
Dictionary.Oxford: Oxford UP,
2010. Print. What Is PHP? Indiana University. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. What Is XHTML? Indiana University.
N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. There are many ways of developing a website. The most common scripting language used is HTML. Although this can be an advantage, due to how easy it is to begin to understand HTML, it is not a great choice for a variety of reasons, and I suggest that the primary language websites are built in should be PHP. However, I am not suggesting that HTML should not be used at all, as

Examples
The code below shows HTML and PHP put together. The PHP being the lines starting with <?php and ending with ?>. Although this may be hard to understand, the PHP code is telling the page to display the header and the navigation bar, which are saved in another le. This is showing how you can keep a website more unied. If you change the contents of the header and navigation bar pages, it will automatically change them on this page, as well as all the other pages the use them.

Unity
Keeping a website unied is very important. In PHP, you can create les for all your main items, such as your head/footer, navigation, etc. and link them back to your main page. Thus keeping your code for your main page less cluttered, and being able to change something on your website, and having it automatically update throughout all your pages. This is especially helpful for dynamic sites, because frequent updates will automatically update if your site is created properly. PHP is server side, which means that it is processed by the web server, and HTML is client side, which means it is executed by your web browser to display content. Overall, this means that PHP alone cannot be used to create websites, but by using PHP les, containing HTML, it can build very powerful websites.

MySQL
PHP allows you to connect to and manipulate databases, which is extremely helpful if you wish to display certain content on your website derived from your database. This is extremely helpful if you wish to separate your code from your content. MySQL, which is a very popular database system, works very well with PHP. This allows for integration of databases to your site, which is extremely helpful if you have a dynamic site. All of this would not be possible with a site built from HTML, because HTML is strictly client-side, while PHP is server-side. This combination of PHP and HTML allows for higher quality and more secure sites to be built.

The next part of code, starting with the lines that opens with <div and ends with > is HTML. This is producing images for a slideshow that is displayed on the website. This is considered a client-side relationship because the web browser is using this code to interpret and then display the information.

Versatility
Many of times one should want to add a PHP script to their website. If your les for your website are built and saved with HTML, this would be impossible. Instead, if you built your website with PHP, and wished to add HTML content to your page, this would be quite possibly. Thus causing the versatility of PHP to be of much greater use and functionality.