PHP & DRUPAL: HAPPILY MARRIED

From 1995 till date, regardless of the competitors, PHP still rules like a genuine legend in the world of web development. Thanks to Rasmus Lerdorf, the victor behind this widely used general-purpose server side scripting language. He, in his quest to launch his online resume developed a PERL/CGI script which could display the head-counts of visitors to his webpage and secondly, to store logging visitor information. But, during those times, WWW did not have such advanced features to ensure his requirements, and this led to the creation of the Personal Home Page (PHP) or the recursive acronym, Hypertext Preprocessor. After undergoing vigorous and hectic pace of development for years, PHP at once, got famous as one of the best open source web-scripting language for developing dynamic websites with greater capability and efficiency. The integration choice for multiple languages such as javascript, stylesheets and many other useful languages and that it can be deployed on most webservers including any platform and every operating system added a feather to its crown. While in 2000, at the University of Antwerp, Dries Buytaert along with Hans Snijder set up a bridge in order to share Hans modem connection amongst their friends. But, they did not have any procedure to share any stuff or a discussion among them. So, this deficiency in socialism inspired Dries to develop a small news portal with a built-in web board where they could share social matters and stay connected among his friends. Though the software was still unnamed, but, after graduation, the group decided to host it globally for the sake of staying connected to each other. So in an attempt to christen the software, Dries wanted to check for the availability of the domain name dorp.org which he mistakenly typed drop.org and settled with the later one itself. Once this got published on the web, its targeted audience got changed and the topic gradually got replaced with discussion

regarding latest technologies and modernization of the same. January 2001, the next year, Dries decided to release the software behind drop.org and coined it as Drupal whose sole purpose was to discuss the new flow of ideas and letting others to extend the experimentation platform so that new course towards development could be unveiled. So, Drupal is actually web publishing programs which can not only manage contents in a website, rather provide scope to develop other web applications or tools which can further manage web contents. Being licensed under the Open-Source category, Drupal stays immune to other expensive content management systems within same pyramid. The Drupal core is designed using the legendary PHP language. The term core is said for everything that resides outside the sites folder while installing Drupal. It is the stock element of the software. But, why PHP?? Dries Buytaert is believed to be a Java maven and also one fine C programmer. But he chose PHP for Drupal. On being questioned about his selection, he says that he believes, there is more number of amateurs using the internet for their websites. He believes either Java or PHP, both could have the job done. He did not want to accomplish something only for the conservative verticals. His main target was each and every individual who were continuously tweaking and updating their websites. And hence, the conclusion is PHP. Release and versions: Drupal had its first presence globally on 15th January 2001 and was christened Drupal 1.0 Version 1.0 syntactically means, 1 the major released version, and 0 the minor up gradations, bug fixes etc, if any. Major Releases Version 1.0 Version 2.0 Version 3.0 Version 4.0 Version 5.0 Releasing Dates 15th January 2001 15th march 2001 15th September 2001 16th june 2002 15th January 2007

Version 6.0 Version 7.0 Version 8.0

13th February 2008 5th January 2011 Expected in August 2013

New releases of the core occur within some specific time termed as windows. A release with some bug fixes is scheduled on the first Wednesday, each month. A stable release with security fix is scheduled on the third Wednesday, each month. Drupal 4.0 till 2006 was the stable release so far. Minor bug fixing and modular up gradations led to releases of 4.1, 4.2 or commonly called 4.x versions. Even Drupal 5.0 has witnessed various sub-versions of its structure and those were collectively called the 5.x. Modules for 5.x are compatible with one another provided they have the same major version. These wont work with major versions of 6.x or 7.x. PHP & DRUPAL GOES HAND-IN-HAND Drupal works with PHP 4 and 5. However, for using PHP 5.2.x one should upgrade the Drupal version to 4.7.5 or 5.1 or higher version than this. But there should be regular screening of the versions newly released in PHP as there has been several security up gradations made. Drupal 6.0 and PHP 4: The version 6 of Drupal including the higher releases will still remain compatible to PHP 4 as long as these are supported. In this version, there may be pre-defined sets of requirements specified by the contributed modules and themes before these get installed within the core. These can only be installed if a compatible version of PHP is found available. These changes will enhance the knowledge of the users regarding the advantages of using PHP 5. This wont even affect the existing website and this will surely encourage the users to adapt PHP5. Drupal 7.0 and PHP 5.2: PHP 5 has been rendered as the best version till date for its great performance in production environments for years. But, the rate of adopting this new version was remarkably low by the webhosts which led to difficulties in embracing all the features in PHP5.

But steps have been undertaken by a new consortium whose sole purpose is to adopt PHP5 in a wider way. The good news is that, Drupal itself is now a part of this consortium. Already there has been a policy uplifted by the consortium according to which, changes in the Drupal core which uses the language features available in PHP5.2 will be accepted within the core. So this meant that PHP4 will not be compatible with Drupal 7.0. The community has already agreed to this fact considering the future of Drupal. Drupal 8 is still under construction and participation of the community will play a significant role in its success. Well, Time to put a smile onto the readers face. This exhilarating CMS in PHP has won the award of the best open-source CMS for two consecutive years. It has been rendered as the best suitable choice for large and extensively used websites generating high volume of traffic. So, lets now check the big guys who are using the benefits of this CMS. The White House NASA AOL Fast Company Yahoo Research Foreign International. Greenpeace So, it can be concluded that with the invent of content management system like Drupal along with the usage of PHP has seriously widened the scope of web development and deploying web applications for mavens as well as for amateurs. And with the progress of the WWW, both Drupal and PHP will enhance themselves to best suit the demand and will continue to provide an enriched opportunity for al classes of developers. So, once again, Rasmus Lerdorf and Dries Buytaert, thumbs up.