Top 5 practice to become a good PHP Developer

1. Use PHP Core Functions and Classes

 Always give preference to the functions already defined and use php's core classes to acheive your goal before defining your own function or classes. For example There’s no need to create a function to remove the white space at the beginning and at the end of a string when you can just use the trim() function

2. Using Configuration File

Always create a configuration file for variables which are used globally in your application. For example  Instead of having your database connection settings scattered everywhere, why not just create one master file that contains its settings, and then include it in your PHP scripts? In case of changes, you will need to change only one file instead of changing multiple files.

3. Always Sanitize Data

Sanitize user input before you start any processing on the data to avoid sql injection or cross-site scripting xss attack. Luckily, there’s a PHP functions that can help. htmlspecialchars
mysql_real_escape_string  are few functions to santize your data. you can write your own function to avoid cross-site scriptingattack

4. Comment Your Code

Don't forget to comment your  code. A well comment code not only helps other to understand the code fast but also helps you to generate a good technical documentation on fly. there are tools which does that.
phpDocumentor  is a good tool which helps to generate technical documentation out of your code, if commented properly.

10. Connect with Other PHP Developers

You don’t know all. E ven if you think so, there are thousands of other professionals out there who  know how to do something better than you do. Join a PHP community like PHPDeveloper and interact with others to sharpen your skills.

Wish you to become a better PHP developer. You can also help me referring good things. Your inputs and suggestions are welcome.