Intermediate PHP Programming – Practical Course in Uganda

Course outline and learning expectations

This is a tutor-led course. The outline shows what your tutor will cover; teaching materials and examinations are provided directly to enrolled students.

What you will learn

• By the end of the course, the learner will be able to:
• Use strict typing, nullable types, union types, intersection types, and enums appropriately.
• Design classes using encapsulation, constructors, and typed properties.
• Apply interfaces, abstract classes, traits, inheritance, and composition.
• Organise PHP projects with namespaces and Composer PSR-4 autoloading.
• Use closures, callables, first-class callables, and functional array operations.
• Model business rules with value objects and immutable data.
• Process large datasets efficiently with iterables and generators.
• Create clear exception hierarchies and resilient error-handling flows.
• Write automated tests and analyse code quality.
• Deliver a structured, tested, reusable PHP command-line application.

Modules

1. 1

   Modern PHP types and safer functions

   declare(strict_types=1).Typed parameters, properties, returns, and constants.Nullable, union, intersection, mixed, never, and void.Value versus reference behaviour.Named arguments and variadic arguments.Enums and domain-safe values.Designing predictable function contracts.
2. 2

   Object-oriented PHP foundations

   Classes, objects, constructors, and promoted properties.Visibility and encapsulation.Instance and static members.Typed and readonly properties.Object identity and equality.Value objects and immutable objects.Modelling contributions, money, dates, and identifiers.
3. 3

   Abstraction and composition

   Interfaces and abstract classes.Inheritance and method overriding.Composition versus inheritance.Traits and conflict resolution.Dependency injection without a framework.Polymorphism.Practical SOLID principles.Refactoring procedural programs into objects.
4. 4

   Namespaces, Composer, and project structure

   Declaring and importing namespaces.Namespace aliases.Organising source and test directories.Composer project configuration.PSR-4 autoloading.Dependencies and development dependencies.Semantic version constraints and lock files.Building a Composer-ready PHP project.
5. 5

   Closures and expressive data processing

   Anonymous and arrow functions.Capturing variables with use.Callables and first-class callable syntax.Higher-order functions.array_map, array_filter, array_reduce, and callbacks.Sorting with custom comparison functions.Pipelines for cleaning and transforming data.Choosing loops versus functional operations.
6. 6

   Iterables, generators, and robust exceptions

   The iterable type.Iterators and generator functions.Lazy processing with yield.Processing large CSV files without loading everything into memory.Domain, validation, and infrastructure exceptions.Exception chaining.Reliable cleanup with finally.Logging-friendly error information.
7. 7

   Automated testing and code quality

   Unit tests and test organisation.Assertions, fixtures, and data providers.Testing normal cases, boundaries, and failures.Test doubles for isolated code.Static analysis with PHPStan.Coding standards and automatic formatting.Code review checklists.Refactoring while preserving behaviour.
8. 8

   Intermediate capstone

   Build a Cooperative Contribution and Reconciliation Engine that:Uses classes, interfaces, enums, and value objects.Imports member contributions from CSV or JSON.Applies configurable fictional contribution rules.Detects duplicates and invalid records.Produces member and group summaries.Uses Composer PSR-4 autoloading.Includes automated tests and static analysis.Runs entirely through the command line.