update php web applications on a production server

For php web applications, using a version control system is one of the best ways to push code changes from development environment to production environment. I would prefer to use the version control system Git. It is a distributed version control and source code management system with emphasis on speed. Git was first released in 2005 and gained vast popularity since then.

If you know any other version control system, it will be easier for you to learn Git. If not, it’s probably a good idea to learn what’s version control and learn at one version control tool, again, I would recommend Git for a starter.

From now on, I would assume you know what’s version control and how to use one of the version control tool.

1. Set up a master copy for your php web app where developers have access to it.

2. Each developer can use the version control tool to create a copy of your php web app for development purpose on their local machine.

3. Use your version control tool to create a copy of your php web app on your production server where you publish your php web app.

4. When developers made code changes to their development copy, they can commit the changes to the master copy.

5. On your production server, you can check if there is any new changes from the master copy, if yes, get the changes from the master copy to your production copy.

6. That’s it.

Note: The above steps are very very high level brain-strom for code deployments from dev to prod. Version control is the KEY to carry out this plan.