Must-have Tools in the Toolkit of a PHP Developer

by JONATHAN PAUL Jonathan Paul working at PHPProgrammers, a leading

There are ample tools available today that make PHP development smooth, quick, and easy and here the must-have ones in every PHP developer’s toolkit.

PHP is the most widely-used web development programming language that lets developers effortlessly and efficiently create simple, secure, and dynamic websites for businesses. Today, you may find 80 per cent of the websites in the SERPs are built with PHP. But the question is what makes web development with this scripting language so smooth and easy? In-depth knowledge of different tools can help developers with this. If you are a PHP developer, you must have a few mandatory tools in your toolkit, and here’s the list of them.

A checklist of the must-have PHP development tools for developers

Refer PHP .net documentation:

The first and the most important tools you must know about is the manual documentation of PHP .net. Keep it bookmarked in the browser of your device. This resource covers almost everything of PHP right from the installation process to all about configuration, and the complete list of features and functionalities of PHP. As a web developer, never expect that you will be able to remember everything. No one really can. Hence, keeping this particular manual handy can be the best way to look for something instantly.

Be the part of the large and collaborative GitHub community:

GitHub is one of the most collaborative web development platforms that is built on top of one of the distributed version control systems known as the Git. For every web developer, this tool can prove to be the best place to share and collaborate with the other developers whenever you need help with something during the web development process. And if you are new to GitHub, it is also recommended to have a look at the fundamentals to know more about how can you navigate the GitHub website, know about the best practices and explore the open-source software.

Rely on Xdebug for exterminating the errors or bugs:

Xdebug is the best debugger for debugging tools you can have for your web development with PHP. Use this tool for testing the codes and debug the same while development. It saves a lot of time and let developers avoid all unnecessary errors and confusions.

Master management using Composer:

Composer is the dependency manager for this scripting language. The Composer helps developers with efficient management of PHP software with all the required PHP libraries at one place. This again saves a lot of time and effort. From the beginners to experts, every programmer should have this in their toolkit.

Testing with PHPUnit is always a good practice:

If you want to try unit tests with PHP then here’s your tool, PHPUnit. It is a program-oriented unit-testing tool or framework and is the favourite of developers, who want to end up with flawless projects. This tool is easy to use, powerful, and flexible.

Use PHPStorm:

PHPStorm is an amazing supercook PHP development tool. It is actually a PHP Integrated Development Environment from the JetBrains that can integrate with many other tools as well such as the ones mentioned above. PHPStorm works well with frameworks like Laravel, Drupal, WordPress, CakePHP, Magento, and more to go on the list. This tool is also capable of understanding the developer’s codes well and helps by offering error prevention and code completion to help the programmers code efficiently as well as productively.

So, these are the most popular and widely used tools for hassle-free development with this programming language. With these tools in the toolkit of a PHP web developer, the entire development process can be easy, smooth, effortless, and much quicker. Though there are many more in the list, knowing these top ones first and in detail can help you a lot while you are starting with a PHP web development project.

Jonathan Paul is an expert PHP developer associated with a reputed software development company in Australia, PHPProgrammers. The author has a niche for writing articles and has written this one highlighting the best and the key tools every developer must have in his or her toolkit to enjoy seamless and flawless web development.