Not Php Vs Js Comparison: Can I Do Anything In Php That Can Be Done With Js?

I've now got some very good understanding of (X)HTML and CSS, and plan to move on. My next choices are PHP and JS (and don't know if I'll ever end up learning one of them, but I wo

Solution 1:

If you absolutely don't want to learn both, then learn Javascript. There are possibilities to implement a Javascript-based backend with node.js.

I advise you to at least try PHP since it is widely used - maybe even at your company.

Solution 2:

For nice user experience (dynamic menu, ajax, effects, ... ) you need client-side programming and for dynamic content you (almost always) need server-side programming.

In short, you need both.

Solution 3:

PHP and JavaScript cannot really be compared in the way you're asking... Both are powerful in what they've ment for and they have a very similar syntax. If you can't absolutely study more than one of them, learn PHP in my opinion. I coded with PHP for almost 10 years before really getting into JS. I would say PHP is the food and JS is the spice.

In order to create AJAX web apps Javascript AND a server-side language is required.

Solution 4:

No, you can't. PHP only works on the server side. Once you've delivered content to the client, PHP can't do anything until the page reloads or the user loads a new page. If you want to do anything client-side in between, you need JavaScript (this includes loading content in real-time, doing a lot of modern UI stuff, etc).

Either learn both PHP and JS or use a blogging CMS and use a minimal amount of both.

Solution 5:

If you put enough effort into it, you can do almost anything server-side using lots and lots of page reloads. You can also generate arbitrarily complex dynamic content using Javascript.

But it's a lot easier to do minor changes to a page's content from Javascript, it's only possible to do animations and effects from Javascript. It's also much easier to directly access the database from server-side code – there might be pure-javascript drivers for SQL databases, and you could use a NoSQL databases that's accessed using web services, but both are relatively uncommon techniques.