Since the introduction of PHP in the 1990s, it has been the most popular and favoured server-side scripting language for building websites and web applications. PHP is considered the best technology among web development companies and businesses because of its cost-effectiveness, flexibility, enhanced visibility, lesser web development time, support for a wide range of frameworks, web development tools, simple syntax, large community support, and an extensive set of libraries. PHP powers nearly 83 percent of the active websites that counts up to nearly 40 million websites. This also means around 8 out of 10 websites that you visit on the internet are built using this programming language.
But with this huge popularity of the language and as it is so widely used, it may not be that easy to hire PHP developers having all the must-have skills and abilities.
Here are the most significant skills you need to look for to choose an expert and reliable PHP developer for your next project.
With millions of websites and web applications being developed on this programming language, it is expected that the demand for PHP is going to increase more in the years to come as well. Business owners who want to get a customised, dynamic, simple, high-performing, browser compatible, and secure website built for their businesses, must look for a few essential skills and abilities while choosing PHP developers for their projects.
Experience and technical proficiency in working with PHP:
The first and foremost thing you need to consider is the experience of the programmer in this field. It is essential to filter out the developers with less experience in PHP development. After all, you would definitely want to get a competitive website built for your business. And for this, you need to look for someone who has hands-on experience in using the languages and their features.
Also, make sure to choose a PHP developer with adequate technical knowledge and proficiency. With PHP frequently getting updated, the programmer must have familiarity and knowledge of the latest PHP web development tools and technologies. Also, the developer must have experience in working with all PHP frameworks like Zend, Symfony, Yii, CodeIgniter, Laravel, CakePHP, and more to ensure smooth, efficient, and well-organised coding with PHP.
Knowledge of other related programming languages:
Knowledge of PHP coding is not just enough to build a competitive website. A strong grasp of other programming languages like Java, Javascript, HTML, and CSS is also required. Also, the programmer must have adequate knowledge of MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and database management.
Practical experience in PHP best practices and UI design patterns:
Knowledge of design patterns is required in PHP development. Knowing the design patterns can help to speed up the web development process by providing repeatable solutions to all web design problems and challenges. Some of the commonly used PHP design patterns are Strategy, Factory, Singleton, etc. Using these design patterns can save a lot of time and effort for the developers as well.
Also, following the best PHP development practices can ensure efficient and effective web development and can help developers to end up with a highly competitive website overcoming all the complexities, and challenges. Knowing the PHP best practices and certain tips can also help developers to avoid common mistakes, make the best use of the in-built classes, functions, libraries, and the other features of the programming language. These practices and tips can help in improving code readability and code quality as well.
Expertise in using the PHP Composer, PHPUnit, and PSR:
These are a few PHP web development tools that developers must know about. Composer is the dependency manager that takes care of the PHP classes, libraries, and functions and allows programmers to easily install and use different versions of these as per the project requirements. A Composer also checks for the availability of the new versions of the libraries and classes and also helps to update the existing ones used in the project.
The PSR or PHP Standard Recommendation is a PHP language specification, which is designed to standardise the concepts of PHP programming and improve the integration and interoperability of the PHP frameworks and components. Currently, there are 13 accepted PSR standards. Every PHP programmer must learn these to reduce all unwanted variations in the PHP codes.
Apart from these, the developers should also know about PHPUnit, a tool that allows effortless unit testing that is it automates the testing of smaller sections or units of the codes against the desired results.
Adaptability:
PHP often gets updated and comes with new features and improvements. A PHP programmer must have adaptability skills and is he or she must be able to adapt these new and improved features to ensure modern and updated website development using the updated technologies. In other words, the professional should always be willing to learn all new PHP features and other related technologies.
It is extremely important to measure and observe the skills, expertise, and experience of a PHP developer while choosing as the competition is high on the web and only an experienced professional can ensure to build an out-of-the-box website making the best use of PHP, its features, frameworks, and the PHP development tools. And the points discussed above can help with choosing the right PHP developer for your website development.
