Learning PHP

Chapter 14. Software Engineering Practices You Should Be Aware Of

Unlike previous chapters, this chapter is not a detailed look at how to do something in a PHP program. Instead, it looks at a few tools and topics that apply to software development in general. These techniques are especially useful when coordinating with other people but can also be valuable when you’re working on a project all by yourself.

The PHP code you write to make the computer do something specific isn’t the entirety of your software project. You also need to keep track of how your code has changed so you can go back to an earlier version if a bug creeps in or reconcile changes that two people have made to the same parts of the code. If bugs do come up or users make requests for new features, how do you keep track of those tasks? Has a bug been fixed? What code was changed to fix that bug? Who fixed it? Is the version of the code with the bug fix live for users to see yet? Source control systems (discussed in “Source Control”) and issue tracking systems (discussed in “Issue Tracking”) give you the information you need to answer these questions.

On all but the smallest projects, when you make changes, you don’t want to edit the code that is running on the actual website that users interact with. Doing that exposes potential problems to your users. Your users will not be happy if you accidentally save a file with a typo in it, or you make a change that bogs down your server with time-consuming ...