The fastest growing technology in the world of web development is PHP.
PHP
PHP stands for Pre Hypertext Processor. In simple terms, it is server side scripting language and it is used to create static and dynamic web sites. PHP is also an embedded language and we can embed PHP code with HTML and JavaScript to create a dynamic web site.
Why it is popular?
PHP is an open source language so you do not need to buy any license or copy to install PHP on your machine. The second reason is that the PHP community is very vast and solution for any technical problem can be found on internet, forum or blog.
Is it secured?
Yes, PHP is very much secured and PHP.net is keep releasing the latest version and updates for the PHP for latest security updates and bugs being removed?
What about the database?
Although PHP can work with any DBMS but it performs best with MySql and most codes are developed considering MySql in mind.
What is latest update?
Currently PHP 5 is very popular, however PHP 6 is launched too and soon the stable version will come. In PHP 5, few functions are marked with warning. The warning is that, they will deprecate in PHP 6 version. Deprecation means they will not work in those new versions. So if you are developing the new code, it is better that you code the site considering PHP 6 standard.
In MySql, MySql 5.2 is very popular and currently working along with PHP. The main reason why PHP is so popular is for the online help. Since it is an open source scripting language, you normally get the solution for all of your issue from blogs, online forums and other expert’s opinion.