Write an article based on this "Open a text editor. Type a simple statement into Notepad. Save the file with name "hello world" and the extension .php."
This is the program you will be using write and edit your code. Notepad can be accessed on any version of Windows using Win + R > Notepad. TextEdit can be accessed on Mac by going to Applications > TextEdit. A section of PHP code begins and ends with bracketed PHP tags ("<?php" "?>"). "Echo" is a very basic statement (an instruction to the computer) in the PHP language that will output text to the screen. The text you want to echo must be enclosed in quotation marks and end in a semi-colon. The code should look something like <?php echo "Hello World!"; ?>. This is done by navigating to File > Save As... In Notepad, add .php to the end of the filename and enclose in double quotations. This ensures the file will not be converted into a basic text file by Notepad. Without the quotation marks, the file will become hello world.php.txt. Alternatively, you can select the drop down menu under Save as type and change it to "All Files (*.*)" which will leave the name exactly how you type it and the quotes will not be needed. In TextEdit, no quotations marks are necessary, but a popup will appear asking you to verify that you want the file saved as .php. Make sure you save the file to your "server's" document root directory. Typically this is the folder named "htdocs" in your Apache folder on Windows, or /Library/Webserver/Documents on Mac, but can be set by the user manually.