The Forbidden PHP Features Encyclopedia

Within the vast realm of PHP development, certain features have incurred the disapproval of various developers, leading to their outright exclusion from conscientious coding practices. This comprehensive encyclopedia serves as a curated catalog, shedding light on the forbidden features that have faced scrutiny and are best avoided in the pursuit of secure, maintainable, and efficient PHP code. Explore this authoritative guide to safeguard your projects and adopt best practices in the ever-evolving landscape of PHP development.

Here are things that you should not use in your code. The reasons are behind the links.

• compact()
  • You’ll Never Believe What One Developer Did With compact()
  • PHP’s “compact” – Pros and cons
• closing tags
  • Should You Close PHP Tags? The Debate Continues…
• else
  • Avoid using else
  • How to simply avoid “else” in PHP and other programming languages
• empty()
  • When to use empty in PHP? I’d say never
  • Using isset() and empty() hurts your code
  • Avoiding empty() in PHP
  • Be Careful Using PHP’s empty()
• eval()
  • When is eval evil in php?
  • Eval Is Evil: Analyzing Performance of Web Applications Based on PHP and JavaScript by Static Analysis
  • The Delicious Evils of PHP
• extends
  • This covers inheritance
  • Inheritance vs Composition: Composition wins by knockout
  • Stop Using “extends” in PHP
  • Are Traits and Inheritance antipatterns in PHP?
• extract()
  • PHP bad practice: the use of extract()
• global
  • Are global variables considered bad practice in PHP?
• goto
  • GOTO in PHP 5.3: is it Really That Evil?
• named parameters
  • Opting-out of named parameters
• promoted properties
  • Why I dislike the PHP 8 Constructor Property Promotion in the current state
• runtime checks
  • We don’t need runtime type checks
• singleton pattern
  • Don’t use a Singleton pattern
  • Stop Using “Singleton” Pattern
  • The truth about the truth about static and singletons
• static methods
  • Don’t Use Service Classes with Static Methods
  • When Should You (And Shouldn’t You) Use Static Methods in Laravel/PHP? A Practical Guide.
• traits
  • My Love / Hate Relationship with PHP Traits
  • Are Traits and Inheritance antipatterns in PHP?
• one letter variables
  • …
• variable variables
  • The Dangers of PHP’s $$