What is php ? Php strands for php; hypertext preprocessor. It is open source scripting language. It is special suited for web development and can embedded into html. The goal of this language is to be allow web delopers to write dynamically genrated pages quickly. It is a server sided language and it is exected on the server. PHP is free to download and use. What can php do ? Php is a server side language so we can create dynamic pages, collect form data or send or receive cookies. PHP can create a file, delete, edit, read and close a file on the server. We need three things to make this work. PHP parser, Web server & Web Browse. Web server used for connected php installation and web browser used for out of php. the extension of php file is .php Why php ? The main thing is php runs on various platforms like windows, mac os, linux, unix etc. Now php is compatible with all servers like apache, IIS. All browsers are support php. Php supports many types of database like my-sql, mongodb, nosql etc. It is easy to learn, understand and use.