Designing PHP-Based Solutions: Best Practice

Designing PHP-Based Solutions: Best Practice - module H115

The PHP programmer needs multiple skills. He needs to be a programmer, a graphic artist, a data librarian, a psychologist, a manager, and a technical writer. It's helpful if he knows a little about the subject of the web site he's working on too. This module looks at application planning taking these disciplines into mind, with a view to persuading the trainee to write easy-to-use, robust, pretty, easy-to-upgrade applications within budget and on time.

This topic is presented on public courses PHP Programming, Deploying LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP, Linux Web Server, Extra Day

Examples from our training material

demo.htp	Template for sc5.php4 "best practise" example
details.xsl	Style sheet to format one particular piece of information from an XML file
grgen.php	Generate a graphic to show a text string
gruse.php	Capthca Driver
images.xml	XML data used by demonstration program
imnames.xsl	Style sheet used to get a list of all images held in XML file
niceform.php4	Form, validation, sticky fields, email results
sc5.php	Main demo script (for older versions of PHP)
sc5.php4	Main demo script - uses sessions, functions, SQL, XML and XSLT
sc6.php	Main demo script - uses sessions, functions, SQL, XML and XSLT
slidetell.php	Look up records (paginated) in a MySQL table.
sqldemo.inc	SQL functions for sc5 demo
stdsess.inc	standard functions for sc5 demo
xsltdemo.inc	xslt functions for sc5 demo

Specialist books

Opentalk forum discussions related to this topic

Arrays and URLs

Pictures

Web Application design - best practise
Steps in a PHP based web application
Designing your web / CGI / Perl application

Background information

Some modules are available for download as a sample of our material or under an Open Training Notes License for free download from http://www.training-notes.co.uk.

Topics covered in this module

Analysing the requirement and designing the Application.
The batchlet model and multi-task PHP scripts.
Writing maintainable code.
Error checking and data integrity in a multiuser environment.
Good use of functions and include files.
Separating HTML from script from SQL.
Keeping databases, directories and shopping carts tidy.
Portability issues (databases, operating systems, PHP releases and installation).
Futureproofing. Backups.

Course links

The following web pages are used as references / examples in this module

[Link] PEAR :: Manual: Coding Standards
(at http://pear.php.net/manual/en/standards.php)

[Link] XSLT namespace
(at http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform)

[Link] No Title
(at http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format)

We check these links from time to time with a spider written in PHP. Latest full check was on Saturday, 12th June 2004. Titles are extracted from the web pages listed.

Complete learning

If you are looking for a complete course and not just a information on a single subject, visit our Listing and schedule page.

Well House Consultants specialise in training courses in Python, Perl, PHP, and MySQL. We run Private Courses throughout the UK (and beyond for longer courses), and Public Courses at our training centre in Melksham, Wiltshire, England. It's surprisingly cost effective to come on our public courses - even if you live in a different country or continent to us.

We have a technical library of over 600 books on the subjects on which we teach. These books are available for reference at our training centre. Also available is the Opentalk Forum for discussion of technical questions.