Field notes from keeping LAMP systems healthy.
September 21, 2026 · StackPioneer
You do not need a rewrite to replace a legacy PHP application. One Apache virtual host, a shared session store, and a route-by-route cutover let new code run beside the old app in production — and let you delete the old route once the new one has earned it.
Read moreSeptember 21, 2026 · StackPioneer
Before you change a single PHP version on a server, get a file-by-file list of what will break. PHPCompatibility scans for version incompatibilities, Rector fixes the mechanical ones, and a characterization test suite tells you whether the fixes held.
Read moreSeptember 21, 2026 · StackPioneer
Deploying by rsync or FTP into the live document root means every visitor during the copy sees a half-updated application. Symlinked release directories, a deliberate OPcache reset, and migrations split from code deploys fix that in an afternoon — no pipeline rewrite required.
Read moreSeptember 18, 2026 · StackPioneer
A lift-and-shift plan for a production PHP/MySQL app: inventory the server you actually have, EC2 plus RDS instead of a rewrite, uploads off the local disk, a replica-based database cutover, and a rollback path that stays warm for a week.
Read moreSeptember 17, 2026 · StackPioneer
Emoji that vanish, accented names that turn into question marks, and a schema half in latin1. Here is how to find out what encoding your bytes are actually in, convert without double-encoding, and handle the index-length and collation traps on MySQL 8.
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