Some say a full-stack PHP developer is someone who can program both on the client-side and the server-side. The server side is programming in PHP and the client-side is programming in the browser using JavaScript.
Others define a full-stack developer as someone who can troubleshoot both the software layer and the server layer.
I like both definitions. I think a full-stack PHP developer is someone who has, at least, enter-level PHP web server system administrative skills and the ability to deal with the full programming stack.
Lets Break That Down
There are two parts to this – The software layer and the Linux PHP hosting layer.
I believe all PHP developers should have a basic familiarity with Linux. I think a PHP programmer should use Linux on their desktop (unless there is a reason not to) and have the skills to configure a basic LAMP or LEMP testing server.
The PHP web server Consists of:
LAMP stands for:
Linux – The operating system.
Apache – The web server.
MySQL – The data engine.
PHP – The programming language.
LEMP stands for:
Linux – The operating system.
NGINX – The web server.
MySQL – The data engine.
PHP – The programming language.
Notice the difference is Apache vs NGINX web servers.
The software layer consists of:
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) – HTML is the bones or structure of the website.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) – CSS gives a website its look and feel
JavaScript, JavaScript library or framework, and AJAX – JavaScript and the associated frameworks and AJAX are used to create interactive web pages.
The PHP programming language – PHP is a server-side programming language which means it runs on the server and sends output to the browser.
Structured Query Language (SQL) – SQL is used by the developer to talk to the MySQL data engine.
There is a lot to know. Knowing and being able to work with all that has been outlined above, in my opinion, makes one a full-stack developer.
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Conclusion
What a Full-Stack PHP developer is can depend on who is defining what a Full-Stack PHP Developer is. There are two definitions 1) a PHP programmer that can program both on the server-side and on the client-side, and 2) a PHP developer than can troubleshoot both the client-side software, the server-side software, AND the PHP web hosting server itself.
I believe a PHP developer must have basic Linux hosting skills. This does not mean this developer needs to be a production server administrator. What I am saying is this PHP developer should be able to configure a LAMP or LEMP stack for testing.