This chapter describes the place of phpMyAdmin in the context of PHP/MySQL, explains phpMyAdmin's history, and summarizes its features. Let us look at the solutions currently offered by host providers. The most prevalent is the PHP/MySQL combination.

Well-supported by their respective home sites, http://www.php.net and http://www.mysql.com, this duo has enabled developers to offer a lot of ready-made open-source web applications, and most importantly, enabled in-house developers to quickly put in place solid web solutions.

MySQL, which is mostly compliant with the SQL:2003 standard, is a database system well known for its speed, robustness, and small connection overhead, which is important in a web context where pages must be served as quickly as possible.

PHP, usually installed as a module inside the web server, is a popular scripting language in which applications are written to communicate with MySQL (or other database systems) on the back-end, and browsers on the front-end. Ironically, the acronym's signification has evolved itself along with the Web evolution, from Personal Home Page to Professional Home Page to its current recursive definition: PHP: Hypertext Processor. A reference about the successive name changes can be seen in PHP's source code itself at http://cvs.php.net/viewvc.cgi/php3/CHANGES?r1=1.23&r2=1.24. Available on millions of Web domains, PHP drives its own wave of quickly developed applications.