In terms of your original question, while I've used mysqli in the past I'm
personally starting to gravitate more toward PDO, as it does seem like a
more effective approach that is becoming a de-facto standard in some areas.
I also second Will Martin's comments; figure out your scope right out of
the gate. Do you just want to replace old mysql queries? Is this an
opportunity to rethink your structure in other ways? Once you decide on a
course, follow it through and avoid getting too side-tracked. That's not
always completely feasible (sometimes a seemingly straightforward project
opens up an unexpected can of worms or three), but, where possible, spin
those unanticipated easter eggs into separate projects. Just my 2 cents
(which may be what it's worth).

Best regards,
*Jason Bengtson, MLIS, MA*
Innovation Architect


*Houston Academy of MedicineThe Texas Medical Center Library*
1133 John Freeman Blvd
Houston, TX   77030
http://library.tmc.edu/
www.jasonbengtson.com

On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 7:57 AM, Jason Bengtson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> +1 for a CMS for institutional websites. If I had my druthers I'd go with
> MODX, which is a solid system for PHP. I've never cared much for Drupal.
> For a library, I think libguides CMS can be leveraged very effectively. It
> has its own foibles that you have to deal with, but that's the nature of a
> content management system. Springshare is a good company to deal with.
> WordPress is what we use at HAM-TMC . . . it wouldn't be my first choice,
> but it works well enough, and as long as you're comfortable editing the
> source php of the theme files you should be fine. The plugins get kind of
> sketchy.
>
> Web apps are, of course, another matter entirely. Frameworks are often
> useful for them, but I wouldn't go any further than that.
>
> Best regards,
> *Jason Bengtson, MLIS, MA*
> Innovation Architect
>
>
> *Houston Academy of MedicineThe Texas Medical Center Library*
> 1133 John Freeman Blvd
> Houston, TX   77030
> http://library.tmc.edu/
> www.jasonbengtson.com
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 7:30 AM, Ian Walls <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> I second Cary's recommendation to go with a CMS.  Another one to consider
>> is SilverStripe.  It's highly extensible, though model administration is
>> done on the PHP level, so be prepared to open up your favourite text editor
>> and mind your syntax.
>>
>>
>> Ian Walls
>> Web Services & Emerging Technologies Librarian
>> UMass Amherst Libraries
>>
>>
>>
>> On 04/29/2015 05:30 PM, Cary Gordon wrote:
>>
>>> My recommendations are:
>>>
>>> Move to a CMS. Drupal has a large library community, and I have been
>>> happily using it for ten years. You might find Joomla more to your
>>> liking,
>>> or you could worship the claw and go to Wordpress, which is mammoth, but
>>> not particularly developer friendly.
>>>
>>> If a CMS is out of the question, consider using the Symfony framework,
>>> which is similar in concept to Rails, but, IMHO, better constructed. I
>>> think that it is the future of serious PHP development.
>>>
>>> The great thing about using a framework is that it provides structure,
>>> making it much easier to make the move to OOP.
>>>
>>> FWIW, the forthcoming version of Drupal is built with Symfony and is the
>>> start of Drupal's move from its "hook system" to more standard PHP
>>> components, which will make it friendlier to PHP developers without
>>> a Drupal background.
>>>
>>> The ever-irascible Rasmus Lerdorf has declared that Drupal 8, paired with
>>> PHP 7 will be unbeatably performant.
>>>
>>> Cary
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, April 29, 2015, Ken Irwin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>  Hello all,
>>>>
>>>> I've just learned that the PHP mysql_* functions are all deprecated as
>>>> of
>>>> PHP 5.5, and I'm trying to figure out what this means for my life. My
>>>> library's website is heavily database-driven, hand-coded, and all
>>>> written
>>>> using the mysql_* functions. It's currently running PHP 5.4, so
>>>> presumably
>>>> code all needs to be updated before the next server upgrade.
>>>>
>>>> So I'm looking for a little advice:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1.       Is there a general consensus on what the best long-term
>>>> alternative to the mysql_* functions is? I see a bunch of references to
>>>> the
>>>> PDO extension, which is available on our server. Is that The Answer, or
>>>> should I be looking other places as well.
>>>>
>>>> 2.       Does anyone have advice about how to proceed with an enormous
>>>> overhaul like this? I'm sure I'll be working on a development copy of
>>>> the
>>>> server until everything is all worked out. But beyond that, advice
>>>> would be
>>>> welcome. Have you employed students to do work like this?
>>>>
>>>> 3.       I wonder what other broad-sweeping old-fashionednesses may also
>>>> be about to rear up and bite me. If you imagine that I learned
>>>> procedural
>>>> (almost never object-oriented) PHP 4 in about 2000 and am slow to
>>>> change my
>>>> ways, can you predict what sort of deprecated foolishness I might still
>>>> be
>>>> perpetrating?
>>>>
>>>> Any advice, input, or experience would be appreciated!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Ken
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>