Some Research on basic PHP and MySQL

• What is PHP?
  - PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
  - PHP is a server-side scripting language, like ASP
  - PHP scripts are executed on the server
  - PHP supports many databases (MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.) - PHP is an open source software (OSS)
  - PHP is free to download and use
  
• What is a PHP File?
  - PHP files may contain text, HTML tags and scripts
  - PHP files are returned to the browser as plain HTML
  - PHP files have a file extension of ".php", ".php3", or ".phtml"
  
• What is MySQL?
  - MySQL is a database server
  - MySQL is ideal for both small and large applications
  - MySQL supports standard SQL
  - MySQL compiles on a number of platforms
  - MySQL is free to download and use
  
• PHP + MySQL
  - PHP combined with MySQL are cross-platform (means that you can develop in Windows and serve on a Unix platform)
  
• Why PHP?
  - PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.)
  - PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
  - PHP is FREE to download from the official PHP resource: http://www.php.net/
  - PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side

**Taken from: http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp