php tutorial

Hi, I've been to your php tutorial page and have a large problem. Nowhere can I find out what php is in simple terms , or why and how i should use it. I am a very rank amateur running a hurriedly built website (http://dysf.info/index.html) cos noone else in the club would have a go at it. We have gallery I managed to install for our photos and it's php. so obviously our server is set for it - but no matter how closely I read, statements such as "think of php as html with a whole lot of great dynamic/whatevers" give me no actual simple idea of what php is - the tutorial goes straight to installing pages on the server. I'm lost. Couldn't someone who knows what it is explain what it is instead of telling us to think of it as something vague? Or is there another knowledge source you know that it suitable for those who don't know exactly what it is and wish to find out whether we need to learn more about it and how to use it? I may sound critical but I am interested in learning - I think - and I can't get basic information to start the thought process from php.net - maybe it's for advanced users only who need advanced instructions? I don't mind a learning curve but a first step is neccessary.

From the preface of the manual <http://de.php.net/manual/en/preface.php>: PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly.

See Above from your FAQ _ it might have been a good start to explain what a dynamically generated page is, otherwise we start with no understanding at all and cannot really move forward at all to consider whether php may be useful or not. - . the more I try to find out, the less I can find. I'm sure this is not the intention of those who spent so much time putting info out? Anyway, any help would be appreciated. I was a commercial writer by trade and have had computers since dos days so I can usually understand things with reasonable explanation. Thanks so much and keep up the hard work peter p ps I have been looking at a friend's site which someone built with php and I can't see anything in the least "dynamic" about it that even I couldn't have done with a basic html editor- mind you the term "rank Amateur" is a kind one when referring to me alongside the term "webdeveloper". pp