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In this article, we’ll talk about PHP. We will learn about the prospects and popularity of this language in 2021, consider the scope and other issues. And the answer to the most important question we want to give now – how to do my PHP assignment? The answer is simple: you just need to find a special service if you have any difficulties. Experts who work on such services will help you quickly solve the problem related to PHP.
Brief theory: what PHP is and where it is used
In recent years, PHP began to squeeze out Nodejs and Python, and on the side of solutions for large companies – Java and .Net. PHP is one of the dynamically typed languages. This means that the data type is not determined when declaring a variable but when assigning a value. PHP is an interpreted language. The programs written on it are interpreted at the time of the call with the help of special programs. Interpreted languages are platform independent, but they are inferior to compiled languages in execution speed.
PHP scope
As noted above, PHP is a general-purpose language. Nevertheless, this language is primarily used for developing web applications. It is a server-side language, meaning it runs on the server. Programs written in PHP receive data from site users, process them, interact with databases, and return the processed information to the site.
Popular content management systems are written in PHP, for example, WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal. WordPress alone powers about a third of all sites on the Internet. This confirms the relevance and popularity of PHP. Popular frameworks for creating sites are written in this language, for example, Laravel, Yii2, Symfony. Finally, such a large-scale and popular project as Facebook is also created in PHP.
Subtotal: PHP is a dynamically typed interpreted language. It is mainly used for developing web applications. Popular site engines and frameworks are written in this language.
The popularity and relevance of the language directly affect the prospects of a specialist’s employment. To assess the popularity of PHP, use specialized ratings, study the number of vacancies in your city or region. The annual GitHub report lists the popularity of programming languages. PHP ranks sixth in this list.
What will happen to PHP’s popularity in the short and long term?
Nobody knows a reliable answer to this question, so you will have to be content with assumptions and reasoning. As a guarantee of the demand for this language, one can consider the fact that the lion’s share of sites is running on it.
See for yourself: according to W3Tech, in September 2021, 65.2% of all sites in the world are powered by WordPress. At the same time, in September 2020, this figure was 63.5%; that is, the popularity of WordPress powered by PHP is growing. Share Joomla! and Drupal account for 2.9% and 2.1%, respectively. These CMS are also written in PHP.
Content management systems are developing, the sites working on them will not be closed en masse. Therefore, the demand for PHP in the foreseeable future will be high. Intermediate conclusion: Most of the popular CMS is written in PHP. It is one of the languages that provide a quick entry into development.
PHP programming from scratch
PHP is easy enough to learn, which is also a plus because, after just a few months of study, you can start working as a junior software engineer. But this is also a disadvantage because it is impossible to become a qualified specialist in such a short period, and developers come to the development field who do not know either Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) or design patterns, which means they create low-quality applications that are difficult to maintain.
Does a PHP specialist need special training?
You can understand the language and start doing something in it quite quickly, without investing time and money in higher education or long-term courses. Though a good education will be a plus, as I said earlier, many developers lack design patterns and other sound development decisions in their knowledge base. Therefore, the best training solutions can be either full-fledged courses, where experienced programmers will teach not only the language but also its correct use, or practice with a mentor, possibly even free.
Should you choose PHP as your first language?
On the one hand, this is a good way to quickly figure it out and also quickly start doing real projects. On the other hand, before learning PHP, you need to have a good knowledge of the principles of layout and at least the basics of JavaScript.
The language allows you to quickly move from theory to practice, bypassing the process of learning classical approaches, so if you have the knowledge and at least minimal experience in another language with an OOP paradigm, for example, C++, or Java, or C#, then you will develop much faster in PHP as a quality developer. This means that you will be able to pass the junior engineer stage and start getting interesting tasks and a good salary in a short time.
