Website Development Fundamental Tips

PHP Language has reached rapidly since its starts in 1995. Then, PHP has become the most popular programming language for building Website. Many popular websites are Built in PHP and Web projects are built with the popular language. Over the years, there have been different versions of PHP released from time to time.

Having Knowledge of PHP basics for each & every PHP framework available may be quite tedious unless you have a PHP expert by your side that can guide you for effective development.

Here, we take PHP development tips that you can follow to ensure development effectively. Whether you work in a PHP website development company or a freelance developer, these tips will beneficial for you for long time.

#1- Object Oriented Programming(OOP)

OOP is the Huge Concept to Understanding OOP is important thing to any Programmer. OOP involves programming using Objects or classes that eliminates the requirement for code repetition besides simplifying basic tasks. In procedural programming, a definite routine is followed as the server reads different files on your server. OOP is simpler, faster and comparatively easier to debug. Going for OOP will change your development style, making it more streamlined & systematic.

If you still not starting Object Oriented Programming, then you are at a disadvantage, and you are falling backward.

Objects are essentially classes that collect a bunch of functions together and wrap them in a wrapper that can be reused over and over again without the need to rewrite functionality or procedures every time you need to do something.

With OOP, there could be one or two objects being instantiated, which, in turn could instantiate a few, a hundred or a thousand other objects which could all perform certain tasks depending on variables passed into the objects.

#2- Error Reporting Must ON

The very first thing you do when starting a new project is to turn error reporting to E_ALL, and you should only turn it off ten seconds before going to production mode. Every developer has dream of Running a project flawlessly. However, errors are a part of the development process that should be noticed as soon as possible.

Biggest error you would make is to not know the error you are making. Keeping error reporting turned ON will enable you run the website project in full production mode without getting a single case of error.

#3- Use PHP’s Inbuilt Functions

PHP has many built-in functions that can do what you need them to, so check out the manual to make sure you are doing it in the best way possible. Using PHP’s inbuilt function can be quite helpful at times, especially in the cases when you are stuck with tight project deadlines

A problem situation could be to count the number of keys in a specific array. Which can ordinarily be done as you loop through the array following it by incrementing one value for each iteration. Another much easier way would be to make use of inbuilt PHP function count() that performs the same task, but in a more uncomplicated manner.

#4- Stay Away from Anything Ending With _once()

We all know that include() simply gives us a warning if it fails, while require() kills the script with a fatal error when it fails. What we don’t forget is that include_once() and require_once() is extremely hard on server resources. Just remember that these things kill your server resources, specially on a huge framework. If you plan your code properly you won’t even need it anyway.

#5- Protect Your website Database

The best and safest way is to use mysql_real_escape_string() for all database before add to the database. This function makes all strings safe in terms of quotes. Other functions that can harm your database or contain malicious code. So use it to be sure you have taken the first step against protection of your data. Another thing you can do is validate all POST and GET strings. Never use $_REQUEST and make sure all submitted form data is of the right type and value before adding database.