Introduction to Dynamic Web App Development with PHP

Vocabulary flashcards covering introductory concepts of PHP development including history, syntax, static vs dynamic sites, variables, comments, and output statements.

Freeware

Software that is free to use but does not provide user access to its application source code.

Open Source

Software that gives users the ability to view and modify its code, ideally accepting modifications from the community.

Static Webpage

A web page consisting of fixed content stored on a web server that is delivered to the user as-is without any server-side processing.

Dynamic Webpage

A web page that generates content on the fly using server-side processing and databases to offer interactivity and personalized features.

PHP

A popular, widely-used open-source general-purpose scripting language executed on the server, especially suited for web development.

Rasmus Lerdorf

The creator who posted PHP 1.0 (as PHP Tools) on June 8, 1995, to usenet group comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi.

Personal Home Pages

The original meaning of the acronym PHP when created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

The modern recursive acronym meaning of PHP, established when its parser was rewritten for PHP 3.0.

PHP File

A text file with the extension .php that can contain text, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP code, executed on the server to return plain HTML to the browser.

Spaceship Operator (

A new three-way comparison operator introduced in PHP 7.

PHP/FI

Forms Interpreter, introduced by Rasmus Lerdorf in April 1996 with built-in support for DBM, mSQL, and Postgres95 databases, designated as PHP version 2.0.

Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans

The developers who rewrote the PHP parser for PHP 3.0, introducing object-oriented programming support and the present-day recursive acronym.

Zend Engine

The scripting engine that powered PHP 4.0 upon its release in May 2000.

Zend Engine 2.0

The core engine released with PHP 5.0 in July 2004 featuring a new object model.

Zend Engine 3

The reworked core engine (originally phpng) powering PHP 7.0, released in December 2015.

Just-In-Time Compilation (JIT)

A standout feature introduced in PHP 8.0 on November 26, 2020, to provide substantial performance improvements.

PHP Execution Workflow

The server-side process where a client browser requests a page, the web server sends PHP code to the PHP Parser, and the parser returns generated HTML back to the browser.

Canonical PHP Tag

The universally effective PHP tag style used to enclose PHP scripts anywhere in a document.

Single-Line Comment (PHP)

A line of non-executable text in PHP code starting with either // or #.

Multi-Line Comment (PHP)

A block of non-executable text in PHP enclosed between /* and */.

Assignment Operator (=)

The operator used to assign a value to a variable in PHP.

echo Statement

A PHP construct used to output data that has no return value, can accept multiple parameters, and operates marginally faster than print.

print Statement

A PHP statement used to output data that takes a single argument, can be used with or without parentheses, and always returns a value of 1.