In the previous chapter, we discussed client-side programming using JavaScript as the language. This chapter is all about server-side programming and the programming language we will learn for that purpose is PHP.

PHP was originally developed by Rasmus Lerdorf, who called it Personal Home Pages. Today the three letters refer to PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a full-featured programming language that is interpreted, not compiled (we now know what that means).

When, in that 6 month class I keep mentioning, we finally reached the PHP part, I was expecting a new and unexplored topic, a new frontier. I was prepared to, as a programmer, boldly go where no one—me in particular—had gone before. Instead, all elements were utterly familiar to me.

When I explain this experience to people, I compare it to running into a girlfriend you have not seen in 15 years and realizing you still like her. Strangely enough, something similar happened to me last year, and this time it was a girlfriend...