Saturday, October 20, 2007

AMP, the easy way to PHP

I tried to mess around with some PHP code months ago, of course you know that you'll need to install a server to run your scripts and Apache seemed to be the right choice by then, but as an average windows user, I had little luck with the server configuration and that was the end of my PHP adventures.

Last week some of my friends suggested PHP for the web site we are working on, it sounded like a good choice as we had different programming backgrounds and each of us had little time for this project. we needed a simple tool that can be learned quickly without all that fuzz about frameworks.

Again, I started searching for some Apache release with my old experience dangling through my mind when I came across WAMPServer.

WAMPServer is a solution stack for PHP web development under windows. You get a single WAMP package that contains Apache, MySQL Server and PHP. When you run the setup you'll get a running Apache Server ready with the PHP module. WAMPServer provides a nice interface to control and configure all these services. I chose to start the service manually so I don't wait unnecessarily at startup when I'm not intending to work with the server.

All you'll have to do then is to create a new directory under WAMP/www, this new directory is then your wwwroot and it's where you put your PHP files, if you fire up your browser and point it to the default http://localhost:80/ WAMPServer will respond by listing your current sites under the www directory, you can then start using your site, from this point you can move freely modifying and testing your code.

check Wikipedia for a comparison of WAMPs

for more AMP packages for Linux and Windows check BitRock

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