JavaScript and PHP are both important coding languages for the web projects we put together. Most of the times it is pretty obvious which language you must use since one language is a server-side language (PHP) and the other an object oriented language (Javascript). But every now and then a scenario arises where you may use either language.
For example, take the video player design on some of the entertainment sites I make. Recently, I made an update to the player that sped up the load time (and took the stress off my server) significantly. This is because of a coding goal of minimizing the amount of PHP necessary for laying out a page.
Minimizing PHP is a good practice for multiple reasons. It takes stress off your server, and it speeds up the load time of your site. The server impact follows from the way PHP functions. PHP loads information from your server (hints ‘server-side language’). The less PHP code, the less work your server has to do. Less work for your server also speeds up the load time of your site following simple logic (everything must load from the server, so less is better).
With my video player example, originally, the player had been coded with an inefficient amount of PHP being used for laying out the HTML. Using Javascript instead to write the HTML after page actions, the load time of these sites sped up drastically.
When it comes to web development and coding, the attitude of ‘less is more’ is always important. Part of search algorithms for SEO purposes looks at the load time of your site now. It also costs more bandwidth to load more from your server. For web development, constantly thinking ‘less is more’ is very important for implenting PHP in a proper manner.
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