PHP is a powerful programming language which has found a very loyal, rapidly growing following in the web development community.  There are currently over 7 million domains using PHP.  Unlike other programming languages, PHP was designed specifically to enable the development of web-based application like ExpressionEngine and pMachine Free/Pro.  PHP is a very compact language, meaning you don’t have to write a lot of code to accomplish a lot.

One of PHP’s biggest strengths is it’s out-of-the-box integration with databases like MySQL.  As a result, PHP and MySQL have become the most popular language database combination on the internet.  Some of the busiest sites reliably use MySQL databases under tremendous server loads.  If you’ve ever used a relational database like Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro you’ll be familiar with concept behind MySQL.  MySQL is a relational database designed for servers.  The great benefit of storing all your data - web entries, comments, preferences, etc. - in MySQL is that it gives you total flexibility in the retrieval and display of your data.