Modern PHP

Appendix B. Local Development Environments

We’ve talked a lot about production server provisioning and application deployment. However, we haven’t discussed how to develop applications on your local computer. What tools do you use? How do you reconcile your development environment with your production environment? This chapter has answers.

Many beginner PHP developers rely on their operating system’s default software stack—typically older versions of Apache and PHP. I strongly encourage you not to use your operating system’s default software. Many OS X users have been devastated when an OS X upgrade vaporized their heavily customized Apache configuration files. Steer clear of built-in software; it’s often out of date, and it may be overwritten by operating system upgrades. Instead, build a local development environment in a virtual machine that is safely isolated from your local operating system. A virtual machine is a software-emulated operating system. For example, you can create a virtual machine that runs Ubuntu or CentOS Linux. The virtual machine behaves exactly like a separate computer.

Tip

Make sure your virtual machine runs the same operating system as your production server (I prefer to use Ubuntu Server). It’s important that your local development and production server environments use the same operating system to prevent unexpected deployment and runtime errors caused by operating system software discrepancies.

VirtualBox

There are many software programs ...