why would you use php over html?
you can’t compare the two. PHP is more powerful. You can use PHP to write HTML. In terms of Flash:
PHP is actionscript and HTML is the motion tweens…
Here is a good conversation about it over on TF forums:
http://www.tutorialforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=39589&highlight=engine
so i guess what i should say is:
whats the advantage to using php over not using it?
well, I’d say that PHP is serverside and html is clientside.
or basically, php is what killed cgi
why would you want to use php in a site over just using html? i understand that php is more powerful, but in what way? what would i benefit to using it when doing a portfolio site?
it lets you re-use single web pages as a template for dynamic content. Things like this page here. Look at the web adress. Every thread you look at is you looking at one PHP page, showthread.php. With that query variable passed in on the end, threadid=18698, the php page is able to get the right info from the server needed to display the page properly, though it is all formed in the same manner, using a similar template as outlined in the showthread.php. Its like a server-side fed javascript (which there is SS JS) that lets you easily manage page content using a small amount of actual web pages.
For typical personal sites, you’d probably have no use for it whatsoever, but the advantages come in when dealing with forums and accessing DBs or dynamically writing files on the server etc.
you can use it for dynamic content. Easily update things and manipulat a database with it…
TOO MANY LETTERS!! TOO MUCH READING!!
ASP is far better 
Dynamic server content my friend… you need to do some reading!
yeah, html is static, php is dynamic.
the main reason for use of php is to create content that’s specific to the user… such as an amazon.com page, which keeps track of what you’re purchasing and makes a page listing these. If serverside processors didnt exist, you would either have to keep track of everything by cookies, or someone would have to be doing a huge lot of editing. And things like database administration wouldn’t be automated.
PHP is quickly becoming the industry standard. Currently is is more powerful and more popular than ASP, and there is another version PHP 5.0 coming out soon that is more oriented towards OOP and has far supperior error-handling, as well as some other fun stuff. From what I have seen with my experience with ASP and PHP I prefer PHP. It is developed for a UNIX server as opposed to ASP which is made for M$, and we all know how reliable M$ is…
i love m$, they’ve made everyone of the constant crashing os’ that’ve been on my computers!
and PHP is crossplatform and FREE
yeah I like PHP. I’m sticking with it… 
I actually like ASP… I love coding in VBscript. However, there aren’t that many Windows servers out there, it’s mostly Unix… so if you’re getting started on server side scripting, don’t even bother with ASP.
I, too, would like to join the ranks of PHP lovers!
a great book on PHP is this one:
It taught me the basics in about 2 days. And it explains everything really really well… check it out…
I hate that series of books, well the AS one i have at least. it was just the same thing, they just replaced the thing we were learning, other wise it was
The code for _____ is _____ and example would be_____
and the same for the next page, of corse more print but you get the idea, i mean i suppose i learned some stuff but it was just boring and i know more with the SAMS but i am reading now because Phillip Kermet explains everything, sure its a lot more reading but its just a better book. I dont know if the whole series is like that or not, but that is my opion so far, i will look at it though, but i found this great book from SAMS Publishing, Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours, i thought it was well written and easy to understand.
JMHO,
Mike
I read thru that one too and din’t like it that much… the MySQL book from visual blueprint is really good too… I guess I like the boring approach 
