Today the web world is buzzing with WordPress websites that have become the majority’s choice. Even web developers enjoy working on WordPress themes for creating websites because it saves a lot of time that they had to spend if they began the development process from scratch.
Website making has now become very easy with WordPress, the ready to use templates that do not require any knowledge of programming. However, the story is different for developers who by knowing programming languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript can develop new WordPress themes to make it more functional and customized. Their job starts from where the common man’s journey in web development ends.
Although the WordPress themes are ready to use, to make it perform all kinds of business and SEO functions, you must tweak some features besides using WordPress plugins. Even it might be required to improve the functionalities of plugins to match the exact requirements of SEO. This is where the knowledge of programming languages comes into play and the reason why web developers still have an essential role to play in developing websites. Had it not been the case, web developers would have simply become redundant.
The basic WordPress themes are SEO friendly to some extent but to make it friendlier according to the business needs you need the guidance of the professionals at Kotton Grammer Los Angeles SEO Company.
Languages used in WordPress
Web developers who work on WordPress development have to be familiar with the languages used in WordPress. HTML and CSS are the two declarative languages used in WordPress and PHP, and JavaScript are the programming languages with PHP being more dominant. Although it may sound a bit technical, it is always helpful to have some basic knowledge of the languages, PHP in particular.
In this article, we will discuss some basic features of PHP that would be useful to understand WordPress better and use it in a more meaningful manner.
PHP – the most preferred language
The importance of PHP has grown many more time ever since WordPress started gaining popularity. Web developers have gained an enormous advantage from WordPress as it has given a boost to their capabilities and provoked their creative desires.
PHP is the scripting or programming language that is in high demand among skilled web developers who can use it for bringing out their best talent that no other programming language can. You can easily embed PHP into HTML code, which is one of the reasons why it has become the most preferred language for web developers.
As compared to any other programming language, PHP extensions offer simply unmatched functionalities. The continuous improvement that happens to the open source programming language due to the contribution of developers who are always striving for its betterment makes the language richer and more effective than other languages.
As compared to other open sources software like Java Servlets, Microsoft Active Server Pages, and Cold Fusion Module, PHP is much easier to program and is also much faster.
The Engine that drives WordPress
WordPress would not have been what it is today had it not been for PHP that runs WordPress just as an engine drives a train. The process of building pages and putting it together is possible only because of PHP. Therefore, if you want to understand WordPress, then you have to know PHP well.
To facilitate building HTML pages and to make it easier was the intention behind the development of PHP. The results of PHP display through an HTML page that viewers can see.
PHP means ‘PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor’ – the word Preprocessor indicates the role of the language in handling everything that happens before the creation of HTML pages. It is a programming language meant for the server side. PHP is capable of converting static pages to dynamic pages and has the special ability to interact with databases.
For developing any web-based software application to enhance the functionality of websites you have to know PHP. Besides wide use in website development, PHP is also useful for GUI applications.
The working modality
Although PHP is technical, you must know how it works when viewers ask for a web page. If the user requests for a web page that has PHP code included in it, the PHP module installed on the web server processes the code. The PHP Preprocessor generates an HTML output that displays on the screen of the user’s device.
PHP files in WordPress have .php extension and you can use it in HTML documents. The processing of the code happens inside the PHP opening tag <?php and the closing tag ?>.
Since PHP is highly flexible in integrating with different kinds of databases Oracle, MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, DB2, etc. it becomes the program of choice for catering to all kinds of websites including E-commerce platforms.
To learn further about PHP, here’s a great 15-minute guide you should make use of: