4 PHP Development Mistakes to Avoid

PHP is one of the most common languages on the web, so as a web developer Bangalore, it helps to have it in your tool kit. You don’t need to know perfectly to dive into the language—PHP is similar to C and Java in some ways, so if you know these two languages, you'll be able to jump into it more easily. However, when learning any new language, chances are you’ll make some mistakes as you’re getting up to speed. Here’s a list of the most common mistakes PHP developers could face and tips to help avoid them.

1. Not Securing SQL Code

Some of the top cyber-attacks on the web are SQL injections. In a SQL injection attack, a hacker can insert SQL code you haven’t authorized into your database, causing it to execute commands like leaking, altering, or deleting information. However, there are ways that better PHP programming will minimize the risk of SQL injection attacks.

PHP is the backbone for several out-of-the-box solutions like WordPress. When writing new extensions and plugins for WordPress sites, developers can likely create inline SQL statements. These statements are built from the front-end and sent back to the SQL database. If these statements are malformed, you run the risk of leaving your website open to SQL injection.

2. Suppressing Errors

PHP has different error levels, but you can manually suppress them in your code. This can be useful if you have errors that aren’t critical and don’t cause any serious effects. For instance, you'll suppress warning messages relating to PHP versions.

The “@” symbol is used to suppress errors when you don’t need them, but use it with caution— it will cause some unforeseen problems. Suppose you have an include file that isn’t necessary when running the application. It can be optional for users who only have a specific component in their browser. In this case, you could use the following code in your PHP file:

(@include("animation.php"))

In the above code, even if the animation.php file has errors, they'll not be displayed or logged. This error suppression should be used sparingly as you can have errors that aren’t being logged and won’t be found till something critical happens in the application. In the long run, it’s better to handle errors rather than suppress them for convenience in website development company Bangalore.

3. Don’t forget to remove Development Configurations

It’s necessary for any developer to have a development environment—a staging environment that mimics the production environment, which houses the live code. In some cases, a developer might be rushed and forget to remove development variables and configurations, then upload these by accident to the production environment. This will be a disaster for a live application.

Many new developers try to skip the staging environment and go straight from development to production in an attempt to save time.  This will be a mistake because staging can help you identify issues that you didn’t catch in development (remember, staging mimics production). If you accidentally forget to remove configurations or don’t find bugs till staging, you'll be able to still catch them before they hit the production environment in php web development company Bangalore.

Always have a staging environment, and use it although you’re simply creating minimal changes. It’s also a good plan to have QA testers test the code in staging before it’s affected to production.

4. Forgetting To Run Backups

It might seem like a simple step, but several developers have poor backup practices. You don’t need to back up every hour, but you must run backups each day if you do important work on a project. Simply keep in mind that your backups save you hours of recoding should you lose your data in the event your drive fails.

If you have a difficult time deciding a problem in your code, back up the system so you don’t lose the solution—and hours of work—and need to recode it. A backup can also prevent from missing a deadline if something happens to go awry.

You should also create backups for your clients in the rare case that a client has an important failure and no backup. It’s a nice gesture, and you'll be able to help your client out of a potentially sticky situation.