When I first got into databases I was using SQL Server. I got into that originally with classic ASP. One of the big things we were told was that you saved a LOT of time in your SQL transactions if you used stored procedures, rather than working with the ASP SQL commands (doing it "in line", I suppose). So almost everything I ever wanted to do with the database I wrote a stored procedure for, and then called the stored procedure from my code.
Anyway, fast forward several years and I'm now doing all of my work with PHP and MySQL (and a little Python). One thing that I don't seem to see much of at all is people using stored procedures/functions, so I haven't really been worrying about it.
However, it occurs to me that I'm just doing it wrong and don't realize it. Is there a major advantage to using stored functions in MySQL? I'm building a fairly good-sized website that handles a lot of calls to the database. The calls are all done in-line with my PHP code. Would I be better off using stored functions for the calls that I'm making consistently, and then just passing variables to the function from the PHP?