PHP & MySQL Bootcamp

Add Back-End Functionality with PHP & MySQL

So you’re comfortable making static web pages, but now you want to have your site actually do something? PHP and MySQL unlock the dynamic power of the web allowing you to create pages that interact with customers, collect and display information from a database, send emails, and more.

We’ll show you how to work with forms, sanitize user input for security, send emails, work with cookies to collect information on your users and upload files. You’ll interact with databases using SQL to fetch, insert, update, delete, and search records. You’ll learn how to use phpMyAdmin to create databases and tables, as well as data-typing and indexes.

What is PHP?

PHP is the web’s most popular server-side scripting language. Huge sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, Baidu, Tumblr and more run on it as it is fast, free, stable, and feature-rich. PHP can help bring your website to life, changing it from a static HTML-only experience to a two-way interactive user experience. PHP is the backbone of many web related activities that we take for granted, such as handling form submissions, powering e-commerce transactions, and interacting with a database.

In addition many of the most popular CMS (Content Management Systems) such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are written in PHP. Understanding this language will enable you to have a deeper understanding of these web tools making them easier to customize for your needs.

What is MySQL?

What database is nearly always paired with PHP? MySQL. MySQL is the world’s most popular open source database. Your database can store customer information, product information, and much, much more. Together PHP and MySQL are available for free on nearly every host.

Prerequisite: Solid understanding of HTML, but you don’t need to have prior programming experience. Please note that to run a local server on each machine we use XAMPP (Free) for the PC and MAMP Pro ($69) for the Mac.