Member Avatar for anthonyjpv

Hi

Im new to php programming

as part of my academics, Im building an e-commerce website

can you give me some tips on how to build robust site?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Member #120589

Dani AI

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Good start, . and pointed to the right priorities: learn the basics and be careful with third-party code. Below is a compact, practical checklist and a few concrete actions you can apply as you move from tutorials to a real e-commerce project.

  • Start small and iterate: define an MVP (product listing, cart, checkout) and add features one at a time.
  • Use version control (git) from day one; adopt branches and meaningful commits. Keep secrets out of the repo (use environment variables).
  • Separate environments: local, staging, production. Test full flows (including payment sandbox) in staging before pushing to production.
  • Use a trusted payment provider so your app never stores raw card data; use their sandbox for development.
  • Vet third-party libraries: check maintenance, issues, and recent security advisories before adding them.
  • Automate tests and deployment: unit tests for core logic, integration tests for checkout, and a simple CI pipeline to run them.

Security and reliability details to implement early:

  • Always use HTTPS sitewide. Set session cookies with Secure and HttpOnly flags and regenerate session IDs after login.
  • Avoid building SQL by concatenating strings; use parameterized queries or an ORM. Escape output sent to pages.
  • Hash passwords with a modern, slow algorithm (bcrypt/Argon2) and don’t invent your own crypto. Rate-limit logins and protect critical actions with CSRF tokens.
  • Turn off detailed error messages in production. Log events centrally and keep regular, tested backups.

Final notes: plan for monitoring and simple performance work (database indexes, basic caching). For academic work, use mock data and payment sandboxes—never real cards. Once your MVP is stable, get a code review and add features one small, tested step at a time.

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Member Avatar for BenzZz

Initially, just get to grips with the basics by trying out tutorials and reading up.

Once you have those, yo make a site robust you could start looking at php frameworks; Zend, Symfony and MVC are some popular ones. Using one would make your site more secure, flexible and organised.

Also, take a look on the OWASP site, here, to have a look at the top ten risks to sites so that you can get an idea on how to prevent them.

Hope this helps!

Member Avatar for Member #120589

If you're implementing 3rd party code, which I assume you'll have to, with an e-commerce system, you need to get the basics of OOP.

the basics of creating a robust, secure site would require a few hundred lines of explanation and even more code examples. Search the web. OWASP is a good site.

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