Tips for Building Large-scale Applications in PHP
Often when coding an application in PHP, we write functions to solve a specific problem at time while keeping in mind that the solution can benefit other parts of the code as well. Repetition of a code block reduces the efficiency of your program and makes it bloated. Also, new members of the team can have difficulty understanding the logic of the code. So, to tackle these problems, you should dive into the given tips that will help you while building large-scale applications in PHP.
In PHP, we can take advantage of several features from Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) to manage the complexity of our code effectively.
1. Establishing a strong foundation
In order to have a strong foundation for your code follow the SOLID Principle.
· Single-responsible principle(S) –Every class should bear only one responsibility
· Open-closed principle(O) — Software entities should be open for extension but it should be closed for modification
· Liskov substitution principle(L) — Objects in a program should be replaceable with instances of their subtypes without altering the correctness of that program
· Interface Segregation principle(I) — Many client-specific interfaces are better than one general-purpose interface
· Dependency inversion principle(D) — One should depend upon abstractions, not concretions
2. Solving common problems through Design Pattern
Design patterns are vital tools for solving problems in a standardized way. There are several problems that occur when designing applications and designing patterns provides blocks of codes, in the form of general and reusable solutions.
3. Decoupling the layers of the application through the Model-View-Controller paradigm
Model-View-Controller (MVC) is an architectural paradigm, which helps in decoupling the interacting parts of an application into three different layers:
· Model — It manages data, logic and rules of the application
· View — It renders the information
· Controller — It is the link between the model and the view. Using input data, it requests data from the model, then passes the data to the view for rendering.
MVC is used for building large-scale applications, because of its separation of the front end and backend layers. The Model and Controller components can be handled by the backend developer team while the view component can be managed by the frontend developers.
4. Object inheritance
Classes and objects are the basics of Object-Oriented Programming. These allow users to create customizable components that can be used to implement specific functionality. Reusability of code can be done by class inheritance and encapsulated properties. It is easier to maintain and cheaper to test.
A class must declare the visibility of each property and function as either public, protected or private which will define its accessibility from everywhere or specific defining class.
5. Reusing code through traits
Classes that do not fall under the same class hierarchy cannot reuse code through inheritance. Traits is a mechanism that fills this gap, making it possible to reuse code even when it does not belong to the same hierarchy or is related to another class.
A trait is basically a class where we can define properties of functions, but it cannot be instantiated. The code written under it is exported during compilation.
Simply use the trait keyword to define a trait, and it is used with the use keyword to import it into a program. There is no limit on importing a number of traits in a program.
6. Making code manageable through namespaces
Namespaces also provide the same functionality to class as traits and interface. Whenever two different elements are of the same name, it allows them to be places on different structures to avoid conflicts.
The keyword namespace declares a namespace, and it must be placed right on the line after the opening <?php.
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