Developing your e-Commerce app with PHP - Is it good

Why PHP: PHP has a good reputation in the industry as a cost cutter technology. It is an open source language that enables the web developers to create advanced web applications without much headache for the development cost. Hence there are many large scale web applications build in PHP, that are not only popular but also having a good user response. The number of websites being developed in PHP is increasing at a rapid tempo with time. In the initial phase of PHP, it was used to develop common websites that are not heavy in size or functionality; but with time due to introduction of many PHP frameworks in the industry, PHP developers get inspired to build enterprise standard web applications for almost all sectors including e-commerce websites or web apps. In past few years, we have seen many e-commerce applications being developed in PHP for different platforms like Android, iOS and Windows etc.

PHP is cost effective: Due to open source in nature and huge availability of resources PHP developers are getting more than enough support from the industry. As a result, the process of web application development is getting easier with time and this impacts the development cost for the client. Moreover, with the availability of many PHP frameworks in the industry it becomes even easier to develop web apps for smart phones and tablets. The future relies on smart devices and fortunately PHP developers have the potential to develop e-commerce apps for these smart devices within budget.

You can rely on PHP for an e-commerce web application: There was a time when all the e-commerce websites were being developed in java or .net. With time, PHP has reinvented itself to adopt all the security measures that we need to develop an e-commerce app. Now a PHP developer can build enterprise standard e-commerce app for the users with much more efficiency and within budget. Moreover all the major payment gateways are now providing direct support to integrate the gateway to the merchant website which is developed in PHP. Payment gateways like CCAvenue, PayPal etc provides support for PHP websites to integrate their payment gateway to the app.

You can get all modern amenities under PHP within your budget: HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery are the three pillars of success for any modern web app; and PHP supports all these amenities. As a PHP developer you can build an interactive and super smooth e-commerce app for your users using these technologies that will definitely attract all users irrespective of platforms. Moreover your e-commerce app can get the essence of dynamic web pages through PHP and AJAX that will definitely improve the user experience.

PHP has a strong support community: As an e-commerce PHP app developer you may need support for any unexpected situations during the development process. But you don’t need to bother much about that; because, PHP is well backed with a strong support developer’s community that can help you in any emergency situation and that too 24x7 hours. So what are you waiting for? Start building your first PHP based e-commerce web app for any of your favourite platform.

You can get in touch with a PHP development company who can help you build web projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP web development services. If you would like to hire PHP programmers for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

PHP and its elegant features that controls web development

PHP on its way to success: At a time when the industry was dominated by Java and .Net, PHP had come up to challenge them on the battle. In early stage of its life cycle PHP was not a huge success, but with time, it received tremendous acceptance value in the industry. This is possible due to the continuous learning attitude of PHP. PHP has been undergoing several changes over time to suite the demand of the PHP developer and industry and hence it come out as a gem in the industry. Moreover, at a period when the industry was carving for a better web language, PHP turned out as a boon for the web developers; because web development process through JSP or ASP was damn tedious at that time where as PHP made it easy with its simple approach and write less do more concepts. This brought an overnight popularity of PHP developers in the industry.

PHP is a true web domain specific language: PHP can only be used for web application development; it can’t be used to develop desktop application like Java or .Net. So at a time when the industry was dominated by web applications, PHP turned out as a leader of web domain specific language. PHP developer can develop any type of websites on the fly. It can be used for agile web development process to develop enterprise standard web applications for the industry. PHP developers can develop any size of application efficiently in less time and more productivity.

It has an awesome feature i.e. Functions with Arbitrary Number of Arguments: Well, PHP has an awesome feature i.e. we can dynamically set the number of arguments for any function. Let me explain how it can be helpful. Suppose, in our web application, there is a function that needs the user to enter the arguments as per his choice; at that time, the application developer is unaware of the number of arguments that can be sent to the program. So, to handle this issue, we can use the above concept to develop our web application.

PHP is future ready: Yes! PHP is future ready; because it has all the future amenities under the hood. Technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery etc. These technologies can be used to write responsive web applications for different screen size, resolution and platforms so that the user can get similar user experience in all screen sizes. To add this, Cloud technology can be integrated by a PHP developer in the web application. With the integration of Cloud technology, PHP developers can give the users an awesome and hassle free experience without any worry for the memory storage size.

It is Open source along with its best friend MySQL: MySQL is treated as the best friend of PHP. It helps the PHP web developer in developing dynamic and data driven web applications on the fly. The best part is it is open source just like PHP. Hence we can expect an exceptional quality of software from the PHP MySQL combo. Moreover you can kick start your first web application using PHP MySQL from the first day itself without any investment.

You can get in touch with a PHP web development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP web development services. If you would like to hire PHP programmers for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

Ladder - Things to know about this PHP database migration tool

Are you developing an app without any support from framework in PHP? PHP is a web language which is extremely reliable and popular in the industry. PHP is an open source language and hence there is a tremendous support for PHP developers from the community. When PHP combines with MySQL it becomes a deadly combo for the web developer because he can develop any type and size of web application. Moreover, there are many frameworks available in PHP like cake PHP, zend and laravel etc. These frameworks make the life of the PHP developer much easier with their hilarious features. It helps in keeping track of all types of activities of the developer during the development process. On the other hand, if a PHP project is developed without the support from a framework then the PHP developer will miss the advantages that he would have gained from the framework. In this situation he should take the help of a third party data base migration tool to keep track of each and every activities of the web developer.

Why Database migration tool (Ladder)? When a team of web developers work on a PHP development project without any support from frameworks, there is a chance of data incompatibility among the developers. Sometimes at the middle of the project, we find it necessary to change the schema of a table in the database. In that situation it becomes very difficult to modify the table with all precautions. Moreover while modifying the schema it is necessary to consider the version of the application in order to avoid the compatibility issue. Moreover if one of the team members alters the configuration of the database then it should be visible to all other members and the process should be performed keeping all the versioning issue in mind; because this may lead to crash of the application if a synchronisation is not made among the programs. To avoid this issue a PHP developer should use something just like a SVN to keep track of all the activities of the team members who deal with sensitive data of the database. Ladder is one such database migration tool for PHP and MySQL to keep track of all the database changes made by the developer with detailed information like data and time of modification and it will also prevent unethical modification of the database. It also helps in comparing different modification versions of the database so that in future the PHP developer will not face any trouble while dealing with debugging process of the application.

Importance of Ladder: Ladder is a database migration tool that can help the web developer in creating, running and managing database migration in PHP environment. It is nothing but a PHP class, which has the capability to keep track of all the modification versions on your database. Moreover, it provides support to modify multiple database schemas in an application in one take. Well, though it is instructed to perform multiple modifications in one take; but, it performs the tasks in multiple steps. Moreover, it performs the migration or modification in a sequential manner so that there will be no redundancy error in future.

If you would like to hire PHP developers from a custom PHP development company for your development needs, please visit Mindfire Solutions.

PHP tips to improve your programming skills

The time at which the industry was trembling with Java and .Net applications, PHP come up to the industry to challenge these giants. Moreover, that time JSP and ASP were at their peak stage and hence we can’t ignore the courage of PHP to come up as a challenger in the industry. Anyway, PHP has come up as a winner in latter stage of its life due to its learn-from-mistakes attitude. With every newer version, it becomes even more powerful and efficient. As a result, there are many frameworks get born to support PHP like Zend, Laravel, CakePHP etc. Anyway, today we will discuss few smart features and tips for PHP developers to improve the skill of programming in the industry.

Naming convention is the first step: Well, when a new web developer or PHP developer starts his career in programming; the first and most important thing is to follow Naming convention. As a good software developer, you must follow some basic rules while naming different variables, functions, class, namespace etc. Moreover, you must ensure that these names are meaningful and give adequate hint to understand their basic requirement in the program.

Proper implementation of Session and Cookie: Yes, a good web developer must implement sessions in the application. Session helps in providing continuous service to the user with proper data from database. It also ensures that privacy is maintained from the users prospective. The cookie on the other hand helps in quick web browsing. It stores user’s data in local browser and hence that will definitely help the application to recognize the user and accordingly providing user specific data to the interface.

Avoid unnecessary database connection: This is really an important tip for every web developer including a PHP developer. Sometimes, we find new PHP developers use multiple queries to fetch a set of data to ensure the data availability in the application. This is a terrific problem when you are dealing with some low memory devices like smart phones and tablets. In that case, each and every tiny load on the browser may crash the application. So, you should avoid all nonsense queries in your code to make it more efficient and optimized.

Take the help of modern technologies: As a PHP web developer, you must learn different advanced technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery etc to create enterprise standard web solutions for next generation those are not only attractive but also light weight. Light weight means optimized!! It is an essential part of any modern web application which is supposed to run on different platforms like desktop, laptop, smart phone and tablets. So, you must implement these advanced technologies in your application.

You should learn about Cloud integration: Cloud is a future generation technology. Future is relying on Cloud and so you should!! A good PHP developer is incomplete without being up-to-date. So as a good web developer you must learn different techniques to integrate Cloud in your application. It will definitely bring a smile on the face of your user while roaming within your application.

You can get in touch with a php development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide custom PHP development services. If you would like to hire php programmer for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

Why MySQL with PHP is Comfortable for Development?

As a powerful server-side scripting language, PHP is used widely for creating a variety of rich internet applications. Likewise, MySQL is one of the most popular relational database management systems (RDBMS). Each of the open source technologies can be used independently for web application development. But web developers prefer combining PHP and MySQL to create applications that can beat the frequently changing trends in web development. Both technologies can be further used as part of LAMP stack to rapidly create stable, reliable and high-performing internet applications. If you are exploring server-side scripting languages and RDBMS for your web development project, it is a good idea to understand the benefits of putting PHP and MySQL together.

Why Developers Prefer Putting PHP and MySQL Together?

Make the Application Compatible with Major Platforms

Along with being fast and flexible, PHP can be deployed on major web servers and operating systems. Also, it can be easily integrated with other popular web technologies including Java. The programmers can further avoid writing additional and repetitive code by reusing the software components. So the dynamic server side scripting language along with MySQL makes it easier for developers to create cross-platform applications.

Implement Functionality Changes

Nowadays, each business wants its application to deliver richer and more personalized user experience. So the features and functionality of an application often changes during the lifetime of the project. The developers, therefore, look for technologies that allow them to implement changes during various stages of the project. As PHP allows programmers to implement changes during various stages of the project, it along with MySQL helps programmers in creating applications that deliver richer user experience.

Create Dynamic Web Pages Rapidly

Many developers combine PHP and MySQL to create dynamic web pages that can interact with visitors in a more personalized way. The developers can use HTML to make web pages more useful and well-formatted. As PHP code can be mixed with HTML code seamlessly, they can use the combination to create web pages that collect a wide variety of data from the visitors. Further, they can keep the visitors engaged by creating customized content on the fly. So PHP and MySQL can be used along with WYSIWYG editors to create dynamic web pages without putting any extra time and effort.

Reap Benefits of LAMP Stack

Within a shorter span of time, the LAMP stack has emerged as a powerful and popular platform for rich internet application development. Along with PHP and MySQL, LAMP stack also includes components like Linux and Apache. Linux is an open source operating system, whereas as a web server Apache helps the application reach maximum users. Along with helping programmers in curtailing development time, LAMP stack further helps them in stable, reliable and efficient applications. So the developers can use LAMP stack to deliver highly efficient application through a well-defined development process.

Simplify Development and Deployment of Rich Internet Applications

The LAMP stack makes programming a breeze. It ensures that the coding is relatively bug-free. So the programmers are not required to invest additional time to identify and fix the errors and flaws in the software application. The feature drastically reduces the overall coding time and efforts. At the same time, the LAMP stack further makes it easier for developers to deploy the web application without any hassle. Often developers have to put additional time to integrate the programming language with the server and the database. As PHP is a designed as a standard Apache module, it can be easily integrated with MySQL and the web server.

Both PHP and MySQL are free software. So the technologies can be used by developers without incurring any additional cost. Many developers put the open source technologies together to curtail the overall development cost. The curtailed development cost also makes it easier for enterprises to beat competition.

You can get in touch with a custom PHP development company who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP website development services. If you would like to hire PHP programmers for your web development needs, please contact us Mindfire Solutions.

Ensuring better data management by integrating MySQL with PHP

The combination of PHP as well as MySQL proves to be powerful when it comes to creating dynamic webpages. Such webpages help in interacting with your visitors better. On the other hand, HTML can help to create well formatted and useful webpages. Data can also be collected from the users or created from specific content that is on the fly. There are many things that PHP and MySQL combination can do that HTML alone cannot.

About MySQL

This is one of the most popular as well as widely used open source databases. It offers considerable easiness while using and great amount of reliability. Moreover, there are no costs associated with using this relationable database. In addition, there are several documentations that are available for free. The community created around it is impressive as well as numerous programmers share their codes that are helpful in communicating with this type of database.

About PHP

It is a widely used programming language that has to be used along with HTML. The USP of this langiage is that this can be used directly within the existing HTML content. Besides, the HTML tags can also be included within your custom PHP development coding. While learning PHP there is no need to give up all that you need to know about HTML rather you are simply adding more functions to the existing ones. This is a scripting langauge wherein HTML might be embedded. As a result this langauge is able to execute a number of functions like printing data, work on the numeric calculations as well as create simpel boolean options.

How can these two work together?

Both of them complement each other. PHP is able to collect information while the relational database stores the same data. The former might also develop dynamic calculations while the database will offer with variables that it requires. Similarly this langauge is used to develop a shopping cart for a particular webstore while MySQL is sused to keep all the information like demand receipts, order status and other product related data.

Although both of them are able to also function separately but when the programmers combine them, it opens up a host of new opportunities. With the internet developing bit by bit each day, it is important to deliver more and more dynamic content in order to keep up with the rising demands of the web surfers. The customers are looking for the desired data to be delivered to tham instantly. This is where data has to be managed wisely. To meet this end both MySQL and PHP could be combined.

The scripting language is the final doorway to the database. It works as a sort of midlle man who is armed with several technologies and can transfer the data as required. The programmers, thus, are able to combine these technologies to offer a better user experience to the visitors.

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Pros and Cons of CakePHP - The Complete List

CakePHP is hugely popular among web programmers due to its effectiveness in making web application development faster and simples. The open source PHP framework further enables developers to create modern internet apps without writing longer lines of code. Despite being written in PHP, CakePHP follows several concepts of Ruby on Rails. At the same time, it also supports web development for both PHP4 and PHP5, along with several software engineering concepts. However, you still need to consider the pros and cons of CakePHP, if you are planning to use it for building your next internet applications.

Major Advantages

• CakePHP supports several widely used software development models including Model-View-Controller (MVC). So developers can use the MVC pattern to keep the business logic and interface separate. The separation makes it easier programmers to simultaneously work on different models. Further, they can easily maintain and update the large web applications without working from the scratch.
• The code generation and scaffolding feature of CakePHP enables programmers to rapidly create prototypes and reusable code. The code reusability makes developers more productive, while reducing the overall development time. Further, they can rapidly create new PHP applications by reusing the existing code for different projects.
• Unlike other PHP development frameworks, CakePHP does not require programmers to use complex XML or YAML files. They can simply setup the database, and start application development. Also, the framework effectuates database management by automating the features. The programmers can further use the built-in validation and authentication functionality of CakePHP to avoid writing additional code.
• CakePHP also comes with a templating system that is both fast and flexible. It further allows programmers to enhance the application’s look and feel by creating custom templates. Some developers even help enterprises in designing tailor-made custom CakePHP templates within a shorter amount of time.
• Many developers find it daunting to work with standard PHP classes. While dealing with different classes, CakePHP allows programmers to directly access Core and App directories. So it becomes easier for them to define the functions of each class in a much simpler way.
• In comparison to other PHP frameworks, CakePHP comes with more innovative built-in tools to make the web applications safe and secure. The programmers can use the built-in tools to prevent SQL injection and cross site scripting (XSS) attacks. Also, the tools help developers to validate user input, and prevent form tampering and CSRF.

Significant Disadvantages

• Many users feel that documentation of CakePHP is inadequate and needs improvement. Despite being a simple and easy-to-learn, CakePHP is considered to be more complex than other PHP frameworks like CodeIgniter. So the developers have to invest both time and effort to learn various aspects of CakePHP.
• Unlike other PHP frameworks like Symfony, CakePHP does not support default routes for Fancy URLs. So while crating Fancy URLs, programmers are required to update the default routes. The feature adversely affects the efficiency of CakePHP for modern web application development.
• Some users have also highlighted the difficulties in migrating from version 2.x to 3.x of CakePHP. To become faster, CakePHP 3 does not support a number of backwards compatible changes. That is why; web programmers cannot easily switch their existing applications to the updated version of the PHP framework. However, the developers can directly use CakePHP 3 to develop applications with the new features.

Despite these limitations, CakePHP still complements the latest trends in web development. As it is an open source web application development framework, it can be used by both small and large businesses to rapidly create commercial PHP applications. However, you must not forget evaluate the pros and cons of CakePHP according to the nature and requirements of your next internet application. You can hire developers from top PHP development company India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP application development services. If you would like to hire php programmer for your web development needs, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.