PHP & Web Development Blogs

People that visit your website face an invisible threat each time they log on. Small businesses are especially vulnerable to digital data breaches, and that can change the way your customers feel about you. But, although you cannot stop hackers from trying, there are things you can do as a business owner to make your website a safer experience for everyone. Keep reading for tips.

Mature digitally.

You may be ahead of the times when it comes to products and services, but, chances are, your website hasn't fully kept up. It's time to learn all you can about the internet and digital security. If you are already somewhat tech savvy, a PHP Security Course from Nomad PHP can help you better understand everything from cryptography to website error messages.

Adapting to today's digital environment means transforming your website to quickly and easily identify threats via machine learning and network monitoring. And, as Upwork explains, digital maturity not only keeps your website safe, but adopting this mindset can also increase your efficiency and accuracy by reducing human errors.

Understand the threats.

It is not enough to simply keep up with your website, you also have to understand the types of threats that are out there. You're likely familiar with ransomware and phishing, but, it's also a good idea to know how a website can get hacked. Your site's content management system and vulnerabilities within your operating system are all weak points that hackers can easily identify.

Insist on security measures.

When customers log into your website, they input their credentials. Each time they do so, you can best protect their information by keeping your systems up to date. You'll also want to ensure that your site is hosted on a secure service and that you have an SSL certificate installed.

If you are not already, have your IT department or managed IT services perform regular website security checks. PhoenixNAP, an IT services provider, notes that those websites working via WordPress should also be safely outfitted with the most recent security plug-ins.

Eliminate spam.

If your website allows for comments that are not manually approved, anyone on the internet can post. This leaves it open for hackers and other unscrupulous individuals to comment with spam and malicious links that your customers may inadvertently click on. While many of these simply exist as a way for the commenter to drive traffic to another website, others are designed to draw your readers' attention, gain their trust, and access their personal information.

Prioritize passwords.

Your customers' passwords are the keys by which they open the door to your website. Unfortunately, many people do not treat them with as much care as they do the keys they use in the non-digital world.

It's true, passwords can be a pain, but you are not doing yourself or your customers any favors by allowing simple one-word passcodes to access your site. Instead, design your site to require a strong password. How-To Geek asserts that this will have a minimum of 12 characters and include a combination of upper and lower case letters, symbols, and numbers.

While you will likely rely on your IT experts to secure your website, the truth is that it is ultimately up to you to ensure this is done. So even if you are not a digital mastermind, knowing all you can about web security can help you be a better business owner. Your customers will be safer, and a secure website is just one way to strengthen your business's online presence and keep up with today's -- and tomorrow's -- technology.

A brief (by Mike's standards) note

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. - John F. Kennedy

I wanted to take a brief moment to express my gratitude this holiday season. First and foremost, a huge thank you to the beautiful Tanja Hoefler who has put in countless hours behind the scenes of Nomad PHP, ranging from finding the best articles and tweeting them out, to tracking down great speakers, to countless hours of video editing (including fixing all my mistakes from the live broadcast).

Thank you to our Founders

I also need to thank Cal and Kathy Evans, an amazing husband and wife team who have done so much for the community over many, many years - including founding and being an invaluable source as Tanja and I took over Nomad PHP. They are truly an inspiration for Tanja and myself, and I hope some day we can do as much for the community as they have.

Thank you to our Speakers

And I need to express my gratitude to our amazing speakers who spend countless hours preparing their presentations, and even stay up all night practicing or get up at 5am to be ready to share their knowledge with the community.

Thank you to our Advisors

Another special shout out goes to Eric Poe, Eric Hogue, and Andrew Caya who have all been tremendous advocates of Nomad PHP, as well as the foundation of our meetings. Their feedback, along with our amazing Advisory Board has helped shake the direction of Nomad PHP, and the many great things we hope to do in the future.

Thank you to our Sponsors

Which brings me to our sponsors. As we try to grow and expand Nomad PHP, as well as bring in more resources and make it more valuable (and affordable), we have done so at a fairly significant loss. That's ok, as that was the plan for 2018, but companies likeRingCentral,Twilio,Auth0, andOSMI have played a critical role in letting us move forward and keeping that loss manageable. Without them, I'm not sure we would be able to be offering the service we do, or have the plans we do for 2019!

*On a side note, if you're not familiar with OSMI, they're a GREAT non-profit who has done so much good in the tech space raising awareness about mental health, and educating employers - I highly recommend supporting this great non-profit organization.*

Thank you to our Family and Friends

Of course, I need to thank my family, my friends, and all those who have supported myself, Tanja, and Nomad PHP over the years.

Thank YOU

Least, but certainly not last - in fact perhaps most important of all - I want to thank the tremendous Nomad PHP community - over 3,000 members strong - that make Nomad PHP what it is. Without you, Nomad PHP wouldn't exist - it wouldn't need to. Andwithout you, and the greater PHP community, I wouldn't be here today, doing what I love to do.

For those that do not know my story, I grew up in medicine - becoming a first responder and pursuing a career as a lifeflight paramedic (helicopter ambulance) before realizing two things... ok three: I had a tremedous fear of heights, I hated needles, and I loved programming.

Leaving the nursing program left me unsure of what to do next, so I did what I loved - programming - where the number of mistakes I made I'm sure outnumbered the lines of good code. If it wasn't for the community being so patient, so encouraging, and helping me grow - I'm not sure what I would be doing today, but it certainly wouldn't involve PHP, Developer Relations, Nomad PHP, or the community.

So for that I want to say one final thank you - a thank you for giving me the gift to do what I love, and the opportunity to hopefully pay this forward, and give back to the community, helping others do the same.

Next year will be an amazing one for Nomad PHP, but I can't thank you all for how incredible and amazing these few short months in 2018 have been - because without you, there would be no 2019.

Have a very wonderful Thanksgiving,

Mike

***PS - want to support our 2019 initiatives and be recognized on Nomad PHP in the process? Become a Supporter.***

Technology is constantly changing the way we interact, research, and react. One such way artificial intelligence is impacting our daily lives, and we may not even realize it is in weather forecasting.

The forecast we usually have been receiving in our phones and in older times primarily in newspapers, was based on data collected via satellites, radar system and weather balloons. In recent times there has been the addition of IoT based sensors as well. However, with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) finding its way in numerous areas, AI has taken a role in improving the accuracy of weather as well.

The Dataset expansion

A significantly enormous set of data is available - from the weather satellites in space, to the private and government owned weather stations which are gaining real-time data. IBM for instance has more the 0.25 million weather stations that help IBM collect real-time data. Additionally, as we are in the age of Internet of Things (IOT), each small device to big device- cellphones, solar panels and vehicles everything has become or is yet to become yet another data source. Companies like GE have installed IOT street lights, which help in monitoring air quality and humidity. These are some of the few sources which help us in collecting the vast amount of data necessary for building on the AI technology, in future these sources and the amount of available data would grow exponentially.

Google and Weather forecast

Using the AI technology Google is able to develop a weather forecast tool, it has been trained to predict rainfalls accurately as much as six hours before. The underlying technology on which this prediction is build upon is U-Net convolutional neural network which is originally used in biomedical research. It works by taking satellite images as input and uses AI technology to transform these images into high resolution images. The only off-set is this is not real-time prediction and the delay due to complex calculations results in using six-hour old data and hence can only predict six-hours before.

IBM and its efforts in weather prediction

The quest for IBM to venture into weather forecasting began with IBM acquiring The Weather Company. IBM plans on using the large amount of weather data available coupled with IBM Watson and the cloud platform to enhance weather forecasting. In 2019 IBM developed Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (GRAF) in order to forecast weather conditions 12 hours prior to a greater degree of accuracy. The radius encompassed by the GRAF is also more narrowed down up to 3 kilometers as opposed to generally being 10-15 kilometers. Another of its marvel is that it gives accurate predictions down to each hour and not just daily.

Artificial Intelligence and Panasonic

Panasonic is the company behind TAMDAR, the weather sensor installed on commercial airplanes. With this advantage of extensive amount of data from in-flight sensors as well as publicly available data Panasonic developed Global 4D Weather. Proving to their claim of being the most advanced global forecasting platform globally they were able to timely predict Hurricane Irma in its early days.

Uses of Weather Forecasting

Sales

Everyday life decisions are affected by weather, it makes us choose in the way we travel, things we eat and things we buy to wear. The rise in temperature may increase sales of chilled drinks, if the company is fully aware of the forecast it would be able to manage productions as per demand. AI can help brands in maximizing sales based on weather forecasts and in minimizing waste.

Natural Disasters

The Panasonic Global 4D weather predicting Hurricane Irma is just another example where timely prediction can save millions of lives in face of situations like floods and Hurricanes. Companies like IBM combine weather forecasting data with utilities distribution network, which enables them to narrow down areas with likely outages. This enables utilities to place their workforce timely so the repair process catering to damage repairs post disasters is shortened. This in turn brings huge benefits to the overall economy.

Agriculture

The weather and agriculture have the most obvious correlation, each process in farming from sowing to reaping all depends on the weather. As farmers cultivate on huge farming lands, accurate information about each part of the land can help farmers in improving their crops and yield by manifolds. Weather conditions can lead to almost 90 percent of crop losses, 25 percent of these losses can be avoided using accurate AI prediction models to forecast weather and in turn improve the yield.

Transportation

Sea travel has always been eventful, timely prediction of storms by using machine learning techniques and hyper-local data allows companies to plan shipments accordingly and avoid severe weather conditions that usually result in delays. Tools like IBM’s Operations Dashboard for Ground Transportation equips in enhancing productivity based on weather predictions.

Another of the implementation of AI in transportation industry corelating to weather is fuel consumption. For instance, using weather prediction models to reduce airplane fuel consumption during its ascent.

To conclude Artificial Intelligence has a key role to play in weather forecasting, weather direct or indirectly impacts each sector in the economy. As the amount of information available to improve predictions increases exponentially it gives a chance to AI to improve accuracy even further. As we continue narrowing down weather conditions precise to time and location the benefits of such advancements across all industries are innumerable.

In modern software architecture, developers are constantly exploring new paradigms to enhance the performance, scalability, and maintainability of their applications. One such architectural pattern gaining popularity is Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS). CQRS separates the responsibility of handling read and write operations, offering numerous benefits in complex systems. In this article, we'll delve into CQRS and explore its implementation in PHP.

What is CQRS?

CQRS, coined by Greg Young, is an architectural pattern that segregates the responsibility for handling read and write operations in a system. In traditional CRUD-based architectures, the same model is often used for both reading and writing data. However, CQRS advocates for a clear distinction between commands (write operations that modify state) and queries (read operations that retrieve data).

Key Concepts of CQRS:
   

. Command: Commands represent actions that modify the state of the system. They encapsulate the intent to perform an operation, such as creating, updating, or deleting data.
   
. Query: Queries retrieve data from the system without modifying its state. They are read-only operations used to fetch information for presentation or analysis.
   
. Command Handler: Responsible for processing commands by executing the necessary business logic and updating the system's state accordingly.
   
. Query Handler: Handles queries by retrieving data from the appropriate data source and returning the results to the caller.
   
. Separate Models: CQRS often involves maintaining separate models for commands and queries. This allows each model to be optimized for its specific use case, leading to improved performance and scalability.

Implementing CQRS in PHP:

Implementing CQRS in PHP involves structuring your application to separate command and query responsibilities effectively. Here's a high-level overview of how to implement CQRS in PHP:

1. Define Commands and Queries:

Start by defining the commands and queries your application will support. Commands should encapsulate actions that modify state, while queries should retrieve data.

class CreateProductCommand {
 public $name;
 public $price;
}

class GetProductQuery {
 public $productId;
}

2. Create Command and Query Handlers:

Next, implement handlers for processing commands and queries. Command handlers execute the necessary business logic to fulfill the command, while query handlers retrieve data based on the query criteria.

class CreateProductCommandHandler {
 public function handle(CreateProductCommand $command) {
 }
}

class GetProductQueryHandler {
 public function handle(GetProductQuery $query) {
 }
}

3. Use Separate Models:

Maintain separate models for commands and queries to optimize each for its specific purpose. This separation allows you to design models tailored to the needs of write and read operations.

class Product {
 public $name;
 public $price;
}

class ProductView {
 public $name;
 public $price;
}

4. Wiring Everything Together:

Finally, wire up your command and query handlers to the appropriate endpoints or controllers in your application. Dispatch commands to their respective handlers and invoke query handlers to retrieve data.

$command = new CreateProductCommand();
$command->name = "Example Product";
$command->price = 99.99;

$handler = new CreateProductCommandHandler();
$handler->handle($command);

$query = new GetProductQuery();
$query->productId = 123;

$handler = new GetProductQueryHandler();
$product = $handler->handle($query);

Benefits of CQRS in PHP:

-Improved Scalability: Separating read and write operations allows you to scale each independently based on demand.

-Enhanced Performance: Optimizing models and handlers for specific tasks can lead to improved performance and responsiveness.

-Simplified Maintenance: Clear separation of concerns makes the codebase easier to understand, maintain, and extend over time.

-Flexibility: CQRS enables flexibility in choosing the most suitable data storage and retrieval mechanisms for different use cases.

Conclusion:

CQRS is a powerful architectural pattern that offers numerous advantages for building complex and scalable PHP applications. By segregating command and query responsibilities, developers can achieve better performance, scalability, and maintainability in their systems. While implementing CQRS in PHP requires careful planning and design, the benefits it provides make it a compelling choice for projects requiring high performance and flexibility.

For any development project to be successful, it’s important to choose the right technology and programming language. Most of the time, developers get confused about which programming language to choose.

Nowadays, PHP and Python have gained popularity among the programming languages for web development projects. However, choosing one between PHP vs Python is a difficult task. Recently, this has become a good topic for discussion.

Here, in this blog, we will compare the two popular programming languages: PHP vs Python. Let’s see which one turns out to be the best choice for web development.

What is Python?

Python is an open-source programming language developed in the year 1991 by Guido Van Rossum. It is one of the most commonly used languages due to its high level and easy-to-understand syntax.

According to the survey by Stack Overflow, Python is one of the most preferred programming languages. These Python app examples highlight its robustness and suitability for building scalable and innovative solutions across different platforms. Most of the companies and developers around the world are using Python web development.

What is PHP?

PHP or Hypertext Pre-processor, is an open-source server scripting language that is used for creating interactive and engaging web pages. This programming language comes with many features, libraries, plugins, and add-ons that increase community support and functionalities.

PHP language was developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in the year 1995. Earlier, PHP was named as Personal Home Page, which was later changed to Hypertext Pre-processor. An advantage of using PHP language is it supports all web browsers.

PHP is a practical, flexible, and fast programming language that can handle dynamic content on HTML sites, session tracking, and databases.

Features: PHP vs Python

PHP

* Open-source language, anyone can download and use it for free.
* PHP is easy to use and code than other programming languages.
* It is more efficient than other scripting languages like ASP and JSP.
* Offers access to log in by creating a summary of the recent user accesses.
* Provides database integration and supports distinct databases such as MySQL and Oracle.
* It has predefined error-reporting constants that generate warning or error messages.

Python

* Python is an easy-to-learn programming language.
* Provides an ideal structure and support for large applications.
* It can operate on different hardware platforms utilizing the same user interface.
* Python can be integrated with C, C++, and Java programming code.
* It’s easy to incorporate low-level modules in Python interpreter.
* Python offers high-level dynamic types of data and support for dynamic type checking.
* Its features support automatic garbage collection.
* It supports an interactive mode of testing and debugging.

Pros and Cons: PHP vs Python

Here, we will compare the pros and cons of PHP vs python for web development.

Pros of PHP

* Has a large ecosystem.
* Flexible and platform-independent.
* Several open-source PHP frameworks are available to use for free.
* Offers many pluggable frameworks, Open-source and object-oriented.
* Supports different database interfaces such as No SQL, PostgreSQL, and so on.
* It is supported by many operating systems and works cross-platform.
* Encourages top-notch debugging.
* Provides in-built SQL support.
* Offers support for database collection modules.
* It supports all operating systems like Windows, Linux, and UNIX.

Cons of PHP

* Delayed and wired performance.
* Not apt for content-based applications.
* Utilizes weak typing that can lead to false knowledge and data to users.
* Its core behavior can’t be changed.
* There’s no IOT alliance.
* Fewer security protocols and features.

Pros of Python

* Easy to learn and maintain.
* An open-source and uniformly unfolding language.
* Enables cross-platform code reusability.
* Object-oriented and versatile language to deploy.
* Offers WORA functionality.
* Helps in developing GUI apps.
* Has automatic garbage collection.
* It can be integrated easily with other languages, such as Java or C++.
* Provides libraries like Tenseorflow for math-intensive tasks.

Cons of Python

* Creates delays in web app testing.
* It utilizes an enormous amount of memory to help developers in easy development.
* Operates slower than other web development languages.
* Not of much use in mobile computing browsers and mobile app development.
* It has dynamic typing, which makes error detection more difficult.
* It’s too large for a simple and small app or website.
* Run time errors occurs due to duck typing.

When Should You Select PHP?

PHP is a commonly used server-side scripting language among developers. The best use cases in which you should select PHP:
* For developing blogs, websites, and web applications.
* Work effectively on the server side.
* Less investment.

When Should You Select Python?

* Python programming language has gained popularity in recent times. Below we have given some of the best cases in which you should choose Python.
* For operating in the areas of robotics and data science.
* When you want accurate and extensive data analytics.
* Developing websites using the Django framework.

Why opt for PHP?

Here, we will give you some reasons why you should opt for the PHP programming language.
* Open-source language, easy to download and use.
* Easy to learn and operates effectively on the server side.
* This scripting language can run on distinct platforms such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and UNIX.
* It’s compatible with every server, like IIS, Apaches, and so on.
* Supports a broad range of databases.

Why opt for Python?

As you know, there are many advantages and disadvantages of using Python. Here, we will tell you why you should choose Python for web development.
* Python language is easy to use and maintain.
* Python syntax is quick to understand and debug as well. Therefore, its source code is easier to maintain.
* It has a garbage collection feature and memory addresses accordingly.
* It comes with many pre-built libraries.
* Python supports GUI apps such as Django, Tkinter, WXPython, etc.
* It’s a versatile and portable language. You can run Python on different types of operating systems or platforms.
* Python comes with a database-friendly interface that can store a colossal amount of data for commercial DBMS systems.
* It has an interactive shell that helps in unit testing before deploying a product.

Comparison: PHP vs Python

Above, we have given the features and pros & cons of PHP vs Python. In this section, we will give you a comparison between PHP vs Python in accordance with different parameters.

Parameters
Python
PHP
Release
    .
    .
Learning curve
Easier
Steep
Language type
Specialized for web development
General purpose programming language
Syntax
Clear & concise
Complex
Security
High
Medium
Readability
High
Low
Database connectivity
Faster
Slower
Debugging
Fast
Slower
Performance
Lesser support
Faster
Supported Frameworks
Flask, Django, Web2Py
Laravel, Zend, Codelgniter
GitHub Stars
    . 9k
    . 5k
TIOBE Rating
    . st position
    . th position
Forks
    . 5 k
    . 9k
Major Users
Instagram, YouTube, Quora, Reddit
Facebook, Yahoo, Flickr, Tumblr


This comprehensive comparison between PHP vs Python can help you to choose the right language for web development. Now, we will compare some other elements that would give you a clear picture of both PHP vs Python.

1. Ease of Learning

Python is an easier language to learn compared to PHP. If you are a beginner, then Python is a good choice as you can learn it quickly. Python programs are shorter as well as easy to write in comparison to other languages.

PHP programming language is made for creating sophisticated web apps. It’s not a general-purpose language, and it takes time to learn it.

2. Ease of Use

Python is an open-source programming language that is versatile and portable. Python’s syntax is simple, and coding is easy to learn compared to PHP. But PHP is not just an ordinary programming language it’s used for creating dynamic web pages with HTML. This makes PHP more difficult to use than Python.

3. Community Support

Both PHP and Python provide good community support. PHP has been in the market for a long time and has a large community of developers. Therefore, you can immediately get support if you opt for PHP.

However, there are even many Python developers who constantly develop python apps. So, the community support in Python is also good. Consequently, we can’t say whether PHP or Python is better at providing community support.

4. Flexibility

Nowadays, web apps backed by Machine Learning are in high demand. Also, ML is a significant part of Python. Python provides many machine-learning libraries, such as Tensorflow, Theano, Pandas, and Scikit-learn. Additionally, these libraries are rapid, unique, & robust and work effectively with a web framework.

Nonetheless, Python programming language can be used in many other fields apart from web development. But when it comes to PHP, it’s best for web development. Therefore, we can say Python is a better choice here.

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5. Speed to Market

Python provides a comprehensive set of modules and third-party libraries to help developers finish the project faster. One of the popular web frameworks written in Python is Django. It utilizes the MVC pattern to allow developers to create apps fast using a significant division of concerns and reusability.

PHP also has a vast set of tools, frameworks, and libraries. Laravel is a popular PHP framework that allows the MVC pattern. Additionally, it comes with many helpful functionalities for web development, like routing, templating, authentication, and so on.

6. Web Frameworks

You get robust and well-designed web development frameworks both in PHP and Python. Most of the big businesses utilize web frameworks that PHP provides. For example, Laravel and Symfony are mature web frameworks, and a huge community supports them. So, we can say PHP makes web development easy.

Python also has many exceptional frameworks that are highly scalable, easy to use, fast and secure. It’s two most popular web frameworks are Flask and Django. If you want a shorter development period, then you can choose Django over PHP-based frameworks.

7. Library Management

Python uses Pip to handle and deal with packages. Pip ensures that Python app development is easy, rapid, and meets development needs. Python has powerful library management compared to PHP. It has a wide range of packages and tools that assist and make web app development easier. So, in terms of library management, Python clearly wins it.

8. Security

When it comes to security, most businesses prefer using Python. For instance, Django offers many pre-built security features that aid in safeguarding the apps from distinct security breaches & threats.

Apart from that, many government organizations rely on Python as their secret hacking tool. Most of the security problems are addressed by its large community support. However, PHP is less strong than Python in aspects of security.

9. Environment Management

In terms of handling environments, Python is the best programming language. It has a Virtualenv system that aids in installing different versions of the language and switching between them immediately.
PHP has no comparison with Python when it comes to handling environments. There’s an analog of PHP, VirtPHP, but it’s archived and not maintained. Therefore, most of the developers opt for Python.

10. Debugging

Python has an in-built debugger called Python Debugger or PDB. It utilizes many debugging strategies. PDB enables dynamic typing and lets developers work effortlessly without stating things at the start of a program.
PHP also comes with an XDebug package for handling bugs and error-checking the codes. But PHP development is quite slow in identifying and removing bugs. Therefore, it often experiences security issues.

The Bottom Line PHP vs Python: Which One You Choose for Web Development?

From the blog, you must have inferred that both PHP and Python are good for web development. However, there are many aspects in which Python wins over PHP. But this doesn’t mean that you only have to opt for Python. The selection of programming language majorly depends on the complexity and needs of the project.

Sphinx Solutions is a leading and trusted web app development company. Our team of web developers can help you create the best web apps for your business based on your specifications. Schedule a call with our experts to get an estimation for your web app development project, or email us at [email protected].

PHP vs Python: FAQs

1. Why choose Python over PHP?
Python is chosen over PHP for web app development due to many reasons, such as ease to use, simple syntax, flexibility, security, high performance, etc.
2. Which programming language is secure: PHP vs Python?
Python is a preferred programming language when it comes to security as it has many security features compared to PHP.
3. Why is Python used mostly?
Python is a general-purpose programming language and is utilized in web development, mobile app development, AI, ML, game development, big data, and so on.
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