I had a discussion this week about the difference between a Php website and a Html one, and why would you use Php in Website Design in the first place? The major reason I gave was that you could update the site quicker and easier with Php, so with larger sites you would have less problems when you wanted to make a change.
The Benefits of Php :
- It is Free and Open-sourced, meaning that anyone can use it.
- It works across different Browsers and Servers.
- There is a lot of easy to use pre built applications you can find on the Internet, such as Blogs, forums, and Shopping Carts.
- There is an Active Community and Php Documentation to give you help if you need it.
Going back to the main reason I use Php in Website Design is the fact that you can update a website easily , first you have to think of Php as blocks that a Server puts together to build a web page. And with Php you can “Include” other Php files, which will be put into your page. So if you have a common Menu or Footer on you site of 100 pages and you need to change the Menu instead of doing it on each page you can Change the menu.php file and it will be changed site wide.
Now people will say yeah but if I use a template file in “Dreamweaver” and you change it will change all the files that use the Template, the problem with this is it can take a long time to run through all the files that use the Template, and once you have done that you have to ‘Put’ all those files onto the server to see the changes on your live site. But with Php you change the one menu.php file and save it then ‘Put’ that one file you are done.
So in conclusion when you think of how everybody says “Time is Money” using Php in Website Design will save you time and money, and if you are thinking that your site is only 10 pages I don’t need to worry about taking time to make changes, what about in a years time when your site has grown to 50 pages…..
Just food for thought.