PHP and MySQL Web Development 4th Ed-tqw-_darksiderg

25
Using PHP and MySQL for
Large Projects
IN THE EARLIER PARTS OF THIS BOOK, WE DISCUSSED various components of and uses for
PHP and MySQL. Although we tried to make all the examples interesting and relevant,
they were reasonably simple, consisting of one or two scripts of up to 100 or so lines of
code.
When you are building real-world web applications, writing code is rarely this simple.
A few years ago, an “interactive” website had form mail and that was it. However, these
days, websites have become web applications—that is, regular pieces of software delivered
over the Web.This change in focus means a change in scale.Websites grow from a handful
of scripts to thousands and thousands of lines of code. Projects of this size require
planning and management just like any other software development.
Before we look at the projects in this part of the book, let’s look at some of the techniques
that can be used to manage sizable web projects.This is an emerging art, and getting
it right is obviously difficult:You can see this by observation in the marketplace.
Key topics covered in this chapter include
n Applying software engineering to web development
n Planning and running a web application project
n Reusing code
n Writing maintainable code
n Implementing version control
n Choosing a development environment
n Documenting your project
n Prototyping
n Separating logic, content, and presentation: PHP, HTML, and CSS
n Optimizing code