Mastering PHP Design Patterns

Junade Ali

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781785887130
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Open Source Programming
• Index: Computer Science

Develop robust and reusable code using a multitude of design patterns for PHP 7

About This Book

• Learn about advanced design patterns in PHP 7
• Understand enhanced architectural patterns
• Learn to implement reusable design patterns to address common recurring problems

Who This Book Is For

This book is for PHP developers who wish to have better organization structure over their code through learning common methodologies to solve architectural problems against a backdrop of learning new functionality in PHP 7.

What You Will Learn

• Recognize recurring problems in your code with Anti-Patterns
• Uncover object creation mechanisms using Creational Patterns
• Use Structural design patterns to easily access your code
• Address common issues encountered when linking objects using the splObserver classes in PHP 7
• Achieve a common style of coding with Architectural Patterns
• Write reusable code for common MVC frameworks such as Zend, Laravel, and Symfony
• Get to know the best practices associated with design patterns when used with PHP 7

In Detail

Design patterns are a clever way to solve common architectural issues that arise during software development. With an increase in demand for enhanced programming techniques and the versatile nature of PHP, a deep understanding of PHP design patterns is critical to achieve efficiency while coding.

This comprehensive guide will show you how to achieve better organization structure over your code through learning common methodologies to solve architectural problems. You'll also learn about the new functionalities that PHP 7 has to offer.

Starting with a brief introduction to design patterns, you quickly dive deep into the three main architectural patterns: Creational, Behavioral, and Structural popularly known as the Gang of Four patterns. Over the course of the book, you will get a deep understanding of object creation mechanisms, advanced techniques that address issues concerned with linking objects together, and improved methods to access your code.

You will also learn about Anti-Patterns and the best methodologies to adopt when building a PHP 7 application. With a concluding chapter on best practices, this book is a complete guide that will equip you to utilize design patterns in PHP 7 to achieve maximum productivity, ensuring an enhanced software development experience.

Style and approach

The book covers advanced design patterns in detail in PHP 7 with the help of rich code-based examples.

Mastering PHP Design Patterns

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Mastering PHP Design Patterns

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2016

Production reference: 1230916

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78588-713-0

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author Junade Ali	Copy Editor Safis Editing
Reviewer Sworup Shakya	Project Coordinator Suzanne Coutinho
Commissioning Editor Kunal Parikh	Proofreader Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor Chaitanya Nair	Indexer Tejal Daruwale Soni
Content Development Editor Nikhil Borkar	Production Coordinator Aparna Bhagat
Technical Editor Hussain Kanchwala	Cover Work Aparna Bhagat

About the Author

Junade Ali was a technical lead at some of the UK's leading digital agencies and has also worked using PHP in mission-critical road-safety systems. He loves pushing PHP to its innovative limits. Having started his career as a web development apprentice, he still remains engaged in the academic computer science community.

Junade, an avid contributor to the PHP community, has also spoken at PHPTek and the Lead Developer Conference. In addition to this, Junade was interviewed by Cal Evans for Voices of the ElePHPant, and he has appeared on the PHP Roundtable. In this spirit, Junade is proud of his local PHP user group: PHPWarks. Currently, Junade works at CloudFlare as a polymath, and helps make the Internet more secure and faster.

Outside of development, Junade has an interest in law and political campaigns and is a published author on constitutional law.

About the Reviewer

Sworup Shakya has worked as a web developer for more than ten years. He started his career as a Flash ActionScript developer, before moving on to ASP.NET MVC, and finally to PHP. During his time as a developer, Sworup worked extensively with frameworks, be it ASP.NET MVC or AngularJS or Laravel. However, while he was working as an ActionScript developer, he had to create one, which gave him knowledge of design patterns and OOP concepts that has helped him improve in order to be able to work on the frameworks he had to work on later.

Sworup received his Bachelor of Information Technology degree from Purbanchal University in Nepal. He currently works with Zimris Technologies Nepal Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of Zimris, LLC, as a senior developer.

Sworup likes to keep on top of the current technologies, keeping an eye on StackOverflow, Laracasts forums, and occasional podcasts. He posts on these mediums whenever he can and is looking to start a technical blog documenting his experiences at http://sworup.com.np/. You can reach him at [email protected].

I would like to thank Suzanne Coutinho, Francina Pinto and Chaitanya Nair of Packt Publishing for giving me this opportunity and helping me through the review process. I would like to thank my friends, family and colleagues for their unconditional support.

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Preface

Have you ever been to a PHP conference? If not, I’d highly recommend it, it is the closest you can get to a living and breathing PHP community. A few weeks ago, I flew from London to St. Louis, Misouri, to speak at php[tek] (the PHP conference run by php[architect]). After the conference, there was a small tradition within the PHP community known as WurstCon. Essentially, hundreds of PHP conference attendees cram themselves into a small hot dog shop and host a hot dog convention, often to the complete surprise of the staff there. Likewise, community nights at PHP events are the warmest and most accepting community occasions you’ll ever run into; the PHP community is surely one that other development language communities envy.

As of PHP 7, the PHP project has changed dramatically; but what I love, remains strong. The warmth you will feel at any PHP conference, the openness in the documentation, and adoption in the language. Yes, there are practices that are undoubtedly bad within PHP itself; however, think of what the PHP community has recently achieved, ranging from PHPUnit to Composer. Throughout this book, bear in mind the improvements in PHP 7, a few of which I’ll share with you. The trajectory of the project is now certainly upwards, and let’s not forget that this wasn’t always true. The PHP community has learned its lessons from the past, whilst the language maintains the flexibility to write what is bad.

This book will seek to impart strong software engineering skills to you with the focus on implementing them in PHP. At the time of publishing this book, there is a certain void and a necessity for this kind of material. This book seeks to be the lighthouse that will not only demonstrate software design theory, but also seek to impart practical information of real value to improve the quality and maintainability of the code you write. This book leaves no stone unturned throughout the software development cycle and will seek to confront the reasons as to why the majority of software projects fail whilst also addressing design, redesign, and safeguard effective code.

This book goes beyond traditional design patterns as envisaged by the Gang of Four and details the practices that passionate PHP developers need to be successful as software engineers or leads on detailed PHP projects. This book will introduce you to the core knowledge required to understand project management techniques, why the majority software development projects fail, and why you can make yours a success.

Originally, I gave thought to writing a book on PHP when Mandi Rose, who I worked with previously, suggested I put together a book on the practices I’ve learned with PHP. Needless to say, at the time that suggestion was made, the best of my career was undoubtedly ahead of me; when the opportunity actually arose to write something like this, I felt I had learned dramatically more as time progressed. By no means should you see this book as the be-all and end-all of PHP practices; instead, you should use it to increase your knowledge base on PHP, but by no means limit it to this. In this book, I aim to give something, however small, back to the PHP community; after reading this book, I would encourage you to get stuck in and share what you’ve learned with others.

Later in this book, I will advocate Extreme Programming as a methodology and courage as a key value of this methodology. I will ask you to bear in mind the explanation of courage in The Values of Extreme Programming: “We will tell the truth about progress and estimates. We don't document excuses for failure because we plan to succeed. We don't fear anything because no one ever works alone. We will adapt to changes whenever they happen.” This is, of course, some key advice we should all follow and seek to genuinely understand risks instead of cowering behind them. For many of us, the code we write during parts of our career is the highest expression of our labor. Indeed, the late nights turning into early mornings we spend debugging and developing are what ultimately allow us to demonstrate the fruits of our labor. In essence, as software engineers, the code we write defines who we are, as such we should be open to constantly refining and refactoring...

Table of contents

• Mastering PHP Design Patterns