Creating professional Web applications! Practical examples describe the development of Web applications in PHP version 5.5. The beginning of programming in PHP is given: installing and configuring Apache, PHP and MySQL, choosing a PHP code editor, language syntax and the most useful PHP functions. The creation of your own website engine and a number of additional modules are considered - a photo gallery, an RSS grabber, a module for working with MP3, a guest book, as well as the use of the powerful Smarty template engine and the creation of a simple custom template engine. The book presents two real projects: a universal content management system that Suitable for building a typical website, and one of the author’s real projects. Two servers were used as data storage - the most modern version of MySQL and a “super-light” SQLite database server, including the MySQL caching mechanism. It is shown how to use Ajax technology to update data on a page without reloading it. A description of the Zend Guard software product, a description of setting up a WAP server and using the SPAW2 editor are provided.