Datasheet

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Chapter 1 ✦ Why PHP and MySQL?
Strong user communities
PHP is developed and supported in a collaborative fashion by a worldwide community of
users. Some animals (such as the core developers) are more equal than others — but that’s
hard to argue with, because they put in the most work, had the best ideas, and have managed
to maintain civil relationships with the greatest number of other users.
The main advantage for most new users is technical support without charge, without bound-
aries, and without the runaround. People on the mailing list are available 24/7/365 to answer
your questions, help debug your code, and listen to your gripes. The support is human and
real. PHP community members might tell you to read the manual, take your question over to
the appropriate database mailing list, or just stop your whining— but they’ll never tell you to
wipe your C drive and then charge you for the privilege. Often, they’ll look at your code and
tell you what you’re doing wrong or even help you design an application from the ground up.
As you become more comfortable with PHP, you may wish to contribute. Bug tracking, offer-
ing advice to others on the mailing lists, posting scripts to public repositories, editing docu-
mentation, and, of course, writing C code are all ways you can give back to the community.
MySQL, while open-source licensed for nonredistributive uses, is somewhat less community
driven in terms of its development. Nevertheless, it benefits from a growing community of
users who are actively listened to by the development team. Rarely has a software project
responded so vigorously to community demand. And the community of users can be
extremely responsive to other users who need help. It’s a point of pride with a lot of SQL
gurus that they can write the complicated queries that get you the results you are looking for
but had struggled with for days. In many cases, they’ll help you for nothing more than the
enduring, if small, fame that comes with the archived presence of their name on Google
Groups. Try comparing that with $100 per incident support.
Summary
PHP and MySQL, individually or together, aren’t the panacea for every Web development
problem, but they present a lot of advantages. PHP is built by Web developers for Web devel-
opers and supported by a large and enthusiastic community. MySQL is a powerful standards-
compliant RDBMS that comes in at an extremely competitive price point, even more so if you
qualify for free use. Both technologies are clear-cut cases of the community banding together
to address its own needs.
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