7 Reasons Why PHP Dominates Web Development in London

Ever wonder why PHP is so hugely popular for web development in London? You’re not alone. As a web developer in London, it’s hard to ignore PHP’s dominance. Whether you’re building a custom site for a client or working at one of the many tech startups popping up across the city, PHP likely plays a role in your work. Here are seven reasons why PHP rules the web dev. scene in London and shows no signs of slowing down.

PHP Is Easy to Learn

PHP is by far one of the easiest programming languages to pick up. You don’t need a fancy computer science degree to get started. In fact, PHP is so simple to learn that many self-taught coders use it to build dynamic web applications.

With PHP, you can learn the basics in a week or two and start building projects right away. The syntax is very straightforward, modeled after the C and Perl languages. But unlike those languages, PHP is tailored for the web, so you can embed PHP code directly into an HTML file.

PHP also has a gentle learning curve. You can start building simple web pages, then gradually progress to more advanced features as you learn – things like object-oriented programming, MySQL integration, and robust framework support. The online documentation and community support for PHP is fantastic, with tons of tutorials and code samples to help you along the way.

What’s more, PHP integrates beautifully with MySQL and SQL databases. If you want to build data-driven websites, PHP has excellent support for connecting to, querying and manipulating MySQL databases. This means you can store, update, and retrieve data with just a few lines of PHP code.

For  web designers and Web Developers in London, the widespread popularity and support of PHP, combined with how easy it is to get started, makes it an ideal first language for building dynamic websites and web applications. Once you’ve mastered the basics, the potential to build bigger, more powerful web software is huge. So why not start learning PHP today?

Open Source and Free

PHP is open source, meaning it’s free for anyone to download and use. This makes it accessible to new developers and small businesses. You don’t need expensive licenses or subscriptions to build powerful web applications.

PHP also has a huge community of developers who contribute free libraries, frameworks, and tools. Things like Larvae, Symphony, and Composer allow you to quickly build robust websites without reinventing the wheel. The community support for PHP is unparalleled.

Need help with a PHP issue? Just Google it. You’ll find thousands of examples, tutorials, and Stack Overflow questions to help solve your problem. This massive knowledge base allows you to learn PHP quickly and get unstuck when you get stuck.

PHP integrates well with HTML and SQL; languages Web Developers already know. If you can build a static HTML site and query a database, you can pick up PHP fast. This familiarity and ease of getting started have contributed to PHP’s popularity.

Finally, PHP runs on many operating systems and web servers. You can develop in Windows, Mac, or Linux and deploy to Apache, Nix, IIS, or others. This flexibility and interoperability mean PHP works wherever you do.

In summary, PHP owes much of its success to being open source, having a strong community, integrating with web standards, being easy to learn, and running everywhere. For web developers in London, PHP has been the logical choice for building dynamic, database-driven websites for over 20 years. No wonder it dominates the market!

Large Collection of Frameworks and CMS

PHP is popular for Web Development in London for several reasons. One of the biggest is the huge collection of frameworks and content management systems (CMS) built with PHP that web developers can leverage.

Large Collection of Frameworks and CMS

PHP has been around for decades, so many useful tools have been built on top of it. Some of the most popular PHP frameworks are:

• Larvae – A robust, full-stack framework great for large, complex web apps.
• Symphony – A flexible, modular framework used by many major websites like Daily motion and Spotify.
• Code Igniter – A lightweight, easy-to-use framework good for smaller projects.

On the CMS side, WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are all built with PHP. WordPress alone powers over 30% of all websites. Having so many options allow London web developers to choose the right tools for each project and client need.

The large collection of PHP software means you can often find pre-built solutions, modules, and plugins to common web development problems. This can save a ton of time and allows you to focus on the unique aspects of your project.

Overall, PHP’s popularity and longevity have created an ecosystem with some of the best web frameworks and content management systems available. For web developers in London, having so many robust, proven tools built on PHP allows them to work efficiently and deliver high quality results to their clients. The huge community support for software like Larvae and WordPress is also a bonus, providing helpful resources for learning and troubleshooting.

PHP’s collection of useful software libraries, content management systems, and web application frameworks are a big reason why it continues to dominate Web Development in London and beyond. The variety of options and community support allows web developers to quickly build and deploy exactly what their clients need.

Scalability

PHP is highly scalable, meaning it can handle increased workloads easily. As your web application grows and receives more traffic, PHP allows it to scale accordingly with no downtime.

Multiple Options for Scaling

There are a few common ways to scale a PHP app:

• Add more servers. You can start with a single PHP server, then add additional servers as needed to handle the increased load. PHP apps are easy to deploy to multiple servers.
• Use a load balancer. A load balancer distributes web traffic across multiple servers. This allows you to scale horizontally by adding more servers behind the load balancer.
• Optimize your code. Make sure your PHP code is as optimized as possible. Use a PHP accelerator like Poach, enable GZIP compression, and follow best practices for efficient code. These optimizations can significantly improve performance and allow your app to handle more traffic.
• Use a cache. Implementing a cache, like Redid or Me cached, can drastically improve scalability. Caching stores temporary data and results to avoid expensive database or API calls.
• Use asynchronous queues. Queues allow you to offload intensive tasks to background workers so your web servers can handle more requests. As your traffic increases, you can add more queue workers to scale the background processing.
• Use a cloud platform. Cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure make it easy to scale PHP apps. You can start with a small instance and scale up to more powerful servers as needed, then scale back down when traffic decreases. Cloud platforms provide auto scaling, load balancers, and other tools to help you build a highly scalable PHP architecture.

PHP’s scalability, flexibility, popularity and low cost of scaling are a few of the many reasons why it dominates web development in London. With multiple options to handle increased traffic and performance demands, PHP apps can grow and thrive.

Huge Community Support

PHP is one of the most popular programming languages for Web Development, and London developers, in particular, love using PHP. Here are a few reasons why PHP dominates web development in London:

Huge Community Support

PHP has been around since 1995, so it has a massive community of developers who actively build libraries, tools, and resources to help you out. If you get stuck building something in PHP, chances are someone else has already solved that problem. You can find help on sites like Stack Overflow or in the official PHP documentation.

The huge community also means more high-quality PHP frameworks, content management systems (CMS), and ecommerce platforms have been built, like Larvae, WordPress, Drupal, and Magneto. These tools allow you to build full-featured web applications without having to code everything from scratch.

PHP conferences, meatus, and events happen all the time in London. Attending events is a great way to learn new skills, share knowledge, network, and become part of the community. Some of the major PHP conferences in London are Larson EU and PHP London.

With so much community support, it’s no wonder PHP remains the go-to language for many London web developers and agencies. The language itself is easy to pick up, and the massive ecosystem of tools and resources help you build robust web applications faster.

While other languages like Python or Ruby on Rails are popular for web development, PHP’s huge community gives it a leg up, especially in London. The support, tools, events, and job opportunities around PHP make it an appealing choice if you want to do web development in London.

You’ve seen the facts – PHP absolutely dominates the Web Development scene in London and for good reason. It’s easy to learn, flexible, and powers some of the biggest websites in the world. As a web developer in London, you’d be crazy not to have PHP in your tool belt. The job opportunities are endless and the community support can’t be beat. While other languages come and go, PHP has stood the test of time and will likely continue to reign supreme for the foreseeable future. So, what are you waiting for? Dust off those old PHP books and start building something awesome. The web needs you!