Professional PHP: Advanced Techniques

The book "Professional PHP: Advanced Techniques" is intended for developers who already write confidently in PHP and want to elevate their skills to a new level — to senior developer or architect. The author, Alexey Sokolov, systematizes knowledge that usually accumulates over years and offers a clear roadmap for professional growth.

What is this book about?

This is not another introduction to syntax. The book is dedicated to deep topics that distinguish professional code from amateur code:

• Architecture and Design Patterns: GoF, SOLID, GRASP, DDD, CQRS, Event Sourcing. You will learn to build flexible and maintainable systems.
• Testing: Unit tests, integration tests, TDD, BDD, Mock objects, Property-Based Testing. How to write tests that truly protect against bugs.
• Performance: Profiling, caching (OpCache, Redis, Varnish), asynchronous execution, database query optimization, working with large data volumes.
• Security: OWASP Top 10, protection against XSS, CSRF, SQL injections, secure session and authentication management.
• Professional Tools: Composer, Docker, CI/CD, static analysis (PHPStan, Psalm), automatic formatting (PHP-CS-Fixer).
• Frameworks and Libraries: In-depth analysis of Symfony and Laravel: how their internals work, how to extend and customize them.

Who is this book for?

• PHP developers with 1-2 years of experience who want to move to the middle/senior level.
• Team leads and architects who need to systematize knowledge and gain a fresh perspective on modern practices.
• Developers from other languages (Java, Python) transitioning to PHP and wanting to write quality code from the start.

What will you learn after reading?

• How to design applications that are easy to maintain and extend.
• How to avoid common mistakes that lead to technical debt.
• How to write code that is fast and secure.
• How to introduce testing into an existing project.
• How to use modern tools for automation and quality control.

The book contains many practical examples ready for use in real projects. Each chapter ends with exercises to reinforce the material. This is a desktop guide for those who want to become a true PHP professional.

If you are tired of "quick and dirty code" and want to write reliable, scalable, and secure applications — this book is for you.