PHP Development Environment

In this appendix, we’ll discuss the tools that we need to run PHP projects on our local machines.

In short, we’ll discuss:

• The LAMP stack that we can use.
• The editor.
• The version control.
• The browser.

The LAMP stack

There are two main ways to set up an “AMP” stack on your computer:

• We can install each component separately. This approach is loved by many folks in GNU/Linux.
• We can also use a ready-to-use bundle or package. This approach is preferred by folks who use Windows or Mac.

Let’s see some examples of the most used “AMP-like” software bundles:

• XAMPP, which is available on all major OSs
• WAMPServer or Laragon, which is available only on Windows
• MAMP, which is available on Windows and Mac OSs

Note: We should also consider using the Docker solution.

Before we continue, let’s ensure that we can successfully run the following code snippet:

<p>Hello, world! The date of today is <?php echo date("d-m-Y"); ?>.</p>

We’ll create an index.php file and put the code given above inside it.

We can also test our integrated environment by clicking the “Run” button below: