Learning PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and CSS, 2nd Edition

What Is a WAMP, MAMP, or LAMP?

WAMP, MAMP, and LAMP are abbreviations for “Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP,” “Mac, Apache, MySQL, and PHP,” and “Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP.” These abbreviations describe a fully functioning setup used for developing dynamic Internet web pages.

WAMPs, MAMPs, and LAMPs come in the form of a package that binds the bundled programs together so that you don’t have to install and set them up separately. This means you can simply download and install a single program, then follow a few easy prompts to get your web development server up and running in the quickest time with a minimum hassle.

During installation, several default settings are created for you. The security configurations of such an installation will not be as tight as on a production web server, because it is optimized for local use. For these reasons, you should never install such a setup as a production server.

For developing and testing websites and applications, however, one of these installations should be entirely sufficient.

Warning

If you choose not to go the W/L/MAMP route for building your own development system, you should know that downloading and integrating the various parts yourself can be very time-consuming and may require a lot of research in order to configure everything fully. But if you already have all the components installed and integrated with each other, they should work with the examples in this book.