»»» PHP, what the heck is it and why do I need it?

You've seen PHP mentioned online, but do you know what it is? PHP is a server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language. It is an open source technology, rapidly gaining popularity as a scripting language for people running dynamic websites. One of its major attractions over ASP or CFML is that you do not need special software to use it. Plus it's platform independant and can work on windows or unix/linux variants.

If your building websites and have more then 10 pages, PHP could be the next best move for your web design career. WHY? heh well here is an example. Lets say you have 10 pages and on every page you have a little 300 pixel wide table with Company News in it. Now your going to have to change it eventually right? So your gonna open each & every page in your WYSIWYG program or notepad for you hardcore designers and waste precious hours changing it on every page. BAH!! What a serious waste of time and effort.

PHP is your answer.

Using one seperate file called 'news.txt' and 3 simple lines of code such as:
<?php // this declares to the browser to be prepared for PHP code
include('news.txt'); // include the text file
?> // ends the PHP code

Will you ever edit each and every page manually again? If you answer Yes, you are behind the times...

You could build a whole website using one main page index.php and include every part for external files such as navigation, links, content, news, and anything else you want.

PHP lets you do many things like this to make your life as a designer easier and give you the ability to work smart. Are you ready to learn PHP?

Until next time.. Have fun
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Written by Yury Rush Copyright (©) 2002 motionrush media labs (link)

Creative & Intelligent website design located In Sarasota, Bradenton, Venice Florida
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working & it's yours! www.motionrush.com
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