Category: Debugging & Deployment

Let’s Compare: RunCloud vs Forge vs ServerPilot

When your website or web application has outgrown your shared hosting account, it is time to move it to the cloud, or into a virtual private server (VPS). Nowadays, VPS providers offer better value in terms of CPU and RAM resources than the shared hosting counterparts. However, I can recall when I wanted to move my web...

What Are the Workflows of Prominent PHP Community Members?

Workflow refers to both the process and the tools that are used in this process. Almost every developer comes up with a process of creating and finalizing the project deliverables. This process is implemented through a set of tools that the developer comes up with through trial and error. Once a workflow has been perfe...

Re-Introducing PHPUnit – Getting Started with TDD in PHP

There are a lot of PHPUnit posts on our site already (just check the tag), but it’s been a while since we’ve actually introduced people to it, and the tool has evolved significantly since then. This article aims to re-introduce the tool in a modern way, to a modern audience, in a modern PHP environment R...

How to Write JavaScript-Style Test Watchers in PHP

I didn’t start out writing tests for my code. Like many before and since, my “testing” was to write code and refresh the page. “Does it look right?”, I’d ask myself. If I thought so, I’d move on. In fact, most of the jobs I’ve had have been with companies who don’t ...

The Theory of Constraints in PHP

I had been reading The Phoenix Project, a great novel about IT (you read that right), which presents day to day IT and devops problems at a large Amazon-like company in a way which makes mortals understand the complexities and chaos of 21st century technology. Without giving away any spoilers, at one point in the book ...

Poka Yoke – Saving Projects with Hyper-Defensive Programming

When working in a medium to large team on the same codebase, it can sometimes become hard to understand each other’s code and how to use it. Various solutions exist to help with this. For example, you can agree to follow a set of coding standards to make the code more readable for each other, or use a framework t...

What Is Snapshot Testing, and Is It Viable in PHP?

Ah-ha moments are beautiful and rare in programming. Every so often, we’re fortunate enough to discover some trick or facet of a system that forever changes how we think of it. For me, that’s what snapshot testing is. You probably write a lot of PHP code, but today I want to talk about something I learned ...

Family CRMs, Guzzle Wrappers and PHP Machine Learning? Sourcehunt!

If you’re new to Sourcehunt, it’s our monthly post for promoting open source projects that seem interesting or promising and could use help in terms of Github stars or pull requests. It’s our way of giving back – promoting projects that we use (or could use) so that they gain enough exposure to ...

Web App Performance Testing with Siege – Plan, Test, Learn

Building a simple web application today isn’t that hard. The web development community is friendly, and there are lots of discussions on Stack Overflow or similar platforms, and various sites with lessons and tutorials. Almost anyone can build an app locally, deploy it to a server, and proudly show it to your friend...

Can You Build a CLI Image Drawing Laravel App with These Packages?

It’s time for our monthly hunt for new open source libraries to use and contribute to! If you’re new to Sourcehunt, it’s our monthly post for promoting open source projects that seem interesting or promising and could use help in terms of Github stars or pull requests. It’s our way of giving bac...