Use Frameworks When Appropriate

Frameworks like Laravel, Symfony, and CodeIgniter can speed up development and provide useful functions, helping you avoid reinventing the wheel. They also often encourage MVC patterns which can make your code cleaner and more organized.

Consistent Naming Conventions

Using consistent naming conventions improves code readability and maintainability. Whether you prefer snake_case or camelCase, just make sure you use it consistently across your codebase.

Validate User Input

Always validate user inputs to protect your website from malicious attacks. Never trust user input without validation and sanitization.

Error Reporting On

During the development stage, ensure that all errors are reported and addressed. Using 'error_reporting(E_ALL)' can help you identify and correct all warnings and errors that might otherwise be overlooked.

Use OOP Principles

Using object-oriented programming principles can make your code more modular, easier to test, and more straightforward to maintain. It also allows for better code reusability.

Comment Your Code

Make it a habit to comment your code. This helps others understand what your code does, which is particularly important when you work in a team. It also serves as a reminder to your future self about the intent and operation of complex code snippets.

Use Composer for Dependency Management:

Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/update) them for you.

Follow PHP Standards Recommendation (PSR)

PSRs are coding standards for PHP. Following PSR ensures that your code is consistent, easy to read, and easy to work with for other developers.