Polish your Magento Development skills by avoiding these 10 mistakes

Now that you’ve decided to build a career in Magento Development it’s time for you to get acquainted with some of the most common mistakes that’re being committed by a good population of Magento developers. Having completed numerous Magento sites, I too have encountered a set of problems that’ve acted as major roadblocks in the route towards success.

In this article, I’ve compiled some of these mistakes that’ve become a part and parcel of almost every Magento coder’s life.

Here’s a list of these mistakes:

Mistake #1- Making changes to the core code file as an attempt to modify the functionality of the system

A majority of Magento developers opt for changing the Magento core code file (which resides in “app/code/core/” directory) as an approach to change the system’s functionality. This is a common practice among developers who’re new to Magento Development. Changing the core code file of Magento leads to issues such as instability, security issues and difficulties in the site upgrading process.

Mistake #2- Copy pasting the standard XML file from the internet

This is yet another mistake committed by Magento coders. Here, the coding professionals indulge in copy paste approach for fetching the standard XML file, which leads to issues that affect the modules.

Mistake #3- Downloading Magento’s full release and trying to upload it using FTP

Even a skilled Magento programmer is into the habit of downloading Magento’s full release and uploading it using FTP, when installing Magento on their system. Doing this leads to the system losing its upgrade capability, making it unfeasible for you to take full advantage of Magento.

Mistake #4- Using the same name for both, front-end as well as admin router

Magento developers commit the mistake of using the same name for both, frontend as well as admin router. Since the admin router is always matched first, doing this makes the frontend page route as if it was an admin page, thereby causing a broken redirect.

Mistake #5- Restoring an older shopping cart backup over a new installation, in an improper manner

While upgrading from an older Magento version to a latest one, most of the developers fail to restore a backup of the previous shopping cart. They opt for using files from the newer Magento version to take a backup, which in turn breaks Magento as a whole.

Mistake #6- Deleting/updating System Magento Attributes

There are developers, who in the wake of adding new features tend to mess up with Magento’s in-built attributes. This is a major error and can seriously hamper the important tools including the ones used for editing, order processing, front-end product visibility etc.

Mistake #7- Making changes to database access details

There may be situations when you might have to change the database access details to give the access to a third party. Doing this during an ongoing Magento import or re-index can lead to adverse consequences such as incomplete table alterations and missing data.

Mistake #8- Updating the ID field to Varchar

While modifying fields with restrictions, developers tend to alter Product ID numeration that results into breakage of all database relationships. This further, leads to a loss of important functionality.

Mistake #9- Not paying attention to the usage of Uppercase and lowercase functions

Most of the novice Magento coders tend to ignore the importance of writing functions in uppercase and lowercase letters. Developers forget the fact that Windows accepts both, uppercase and lowercase function names as same while Linux understands them as two separate functions.

Mistake #10- Forgetting about disabling the Shopping Cart Maintenance mode

Even a diligent Magento programmer often forgets to disable the maintenance mode for their shopping carts. This results into appearance of the following message:

Fatal error: Class ‘TBT_Common_Model_Resource_Mysql4_Setup’ not found in /var/www/html/includes/src/Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Setup.php on line 234

Summary

Magento Development brings in a whole lot of opportunities for the website owners. The only thing required is an urge to explore Magento features to the fullest, which’s only possible by avoiding silly mistakes committed during the process of developing websites, using the Magento framework.

Thanks for taking out time to read my article. I wish you all the luck for your next Magento project. Hope you’ll avoid making these mistakes and complete your project with excellence.