Dev Environment vs. Production

[KyleMassacre]

There is a topic that was created and we (even myself) went off topic and it was about different environments. So I wanted to maybe create its own.

I want to talk about some whys and whats between Dev and Production and give some resources as well.

Why use a dev environment

1. It's cheap

2. It's easy

3. For the most part it's secure.

What I mean by secure is that it's not really open to the outside world so it's only as secure as your weakest script. And since your running on a dev environment aka Localhost, you have all the time in the world because your not paying for hosting just yet. This gives you plenty of time to do whatever it is that you need to do in order to get your game production ready.

Below is a list of some of the most common applications used to develop locally on your own machine:

WAMP Windows Apache MySQL PHP

MAMP (Pro) Mac OSX Apache MySQL PHP

XAMPP No idea what X stands for and the last "P" I believe is PERL

AMPPS No clue what the "S" is either

Vagrant Probably my favorite and best pick but does require some basic cli usage and another provider like Virtual Box.

And also when programming locally, some kind of version control is your friend (Git). Add a Git repo to your locally hosted directory and also to your production server. This will help you make changes and deploy them very easily. Also, if you muck up a change you can revert back pretty easily. Ctrl+Z only works for so long and even the history on my IDE has been lost so this has saved me before.

Why not develop on a production environment

1. Just dumb

2. Just dumb

3. See points 1 & 2

One of the biggest issues I have with this is the fact your edits, changes, or additions haven't been tested. A couple reasons why this is a bad idea is for the most part, your security hasn't been thoroughly tested and can result in data theft. Your users data like email addresses and passwords should be a top priority for you. Some people use the same password for everything like BANKS and even their email accounts.

Another reason is, people can be online. If your editing a file like the MCCodes file "globals.php" and you create a syntax error, people may get hung up doing something and they just submitted a form and lost out on money buying something or even attacking and click back to find out they lost their health. The list goes on!!

I know it can be a headache to have to open your IDE or text editor of choice, edit your files, open up FTP and upload your edits; but it's safer in the long run.

[Zettieee]

If you don't want to install a program. You can always make a sub domain from cpanel eg: dev.yoururl.com and develop in the folder.

[Dominion]

There comes a point when you have to test on a live server. Mainly for beta testing, but it can't all be done locally. I understand it's different from developing because, in theory, the site is mostly complete... depending on the stage you're testing out. I tend to get people to test at predetermined stages. The login, register, and main files are done? Dump it on the main server to get people to look at the basic design and give opinions on the project to far. Although I have a server hosting other things so that doesn't cost me anything.

Developing/fixing and the like should always been done locally. The only reason to edit a file on a live server is a very quick fix, and doing that on the publicly live site isn't something I would be regularly.

[KyleMassacre]

There probably will be some cases where doing something live may be better than locally but the point of this is to try to avoid as much live development as possible.

Generally get your site ready for live and then when you have the main config done you can make that push