What the forget is a SCM?
Source Control Management / Version Control System: Handles source code revisioning etc. Examples: Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, etc.
How else do I run Apache and PHP? Why would I run it on my local machine that's so limiting lol.
The answer to this would be to use something that isn't terrible. 

On a more serious note, in what way would that be "limiting"? Also, even PHP actually has it's own built-in server since, I think, 5.4.