NYCPHP Meetup

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Ajai Khattri wrote:
>> Do any of you have recommendations on configuration settings to use?
> 
> Most of these packages come with pretty sensible config settings so I 
> probably would *not* mess with them without knowing the consequences.

Duly noted.

>> Which packages/extensions/modules should be installed/enabled?
> 
> That kind of depends on what software you're writing dont you think? 

Ah, right--thinking. Sometimes I forget to do that. Yes, that would be a
sensible thing to consider. :-)

>Some 
> frameworks will need additional extensions and tweaks to Apache so there 
> is no simple fits-all rule. The other thing to consider is that any 
> changes you make should be easy to maintain and put back after a software 
> update. (In the case of Apache I tend to leave the main config alone since 
> any changes will likely be overwritten when the software is updated). IIRC 
> Ubuntu has something like a sites-enabled/sites-available folder where you 
> can put vhost files (one per vhost is good practice). I usually create a 
> file called ALL that contains any global config tweaks.
> 
>> Should I go ahead and turn off error reporting and enable it via my
>> scripts, or should I leave it on all the time? If I should leave it on,
>> at what level should I set it? E_ALL?
> 
> If you're using a framework it might already do all that for you and maybe 
> provide its own config file for you to tweak that in.

I'll look into all that, thanks.

> Firebug is good on the browser side (also look at the Web Developer 
> Toolbar and the YSlow extension for Firebug). On the server side look at 
> FirePHP and Xdebug extensions for PHP.
> 

Firebug, YSlow, and the Web Developer Toolbar have been my best friends
for front-end work for quite some time. I've seen the FirePHP & Xdebug
extensions but didn't really understand how to use them, so I just
ignored them. Now that you've mentioned them I'll go back and give them
a closer look.

> All developers should be using version control. Subversion is very popular 
> but Git is also becoming so these days.

Understood.

Bev