PHP best design practices

Question

Ok, have a bunch of questions that I have been thinking about the past few days. Currently I have a site that is just a bunch of PHP files with MySQL statements mixed in with PHP, HTML and CSS, basically a huge mess. I have been tasked with cleaning up the site and have made for myself, the following requirements:

• The site needs to be efficient and well laid out (the source code), I would like to be able to write as little code as possible.
• There has to be good separation between structure, presentation and logic.
• For whatever reason, I can't use a framework and need to keep the code maintainable and "simple" as there will be future developers working with it.
• There needs to be an admin section for at least a few pages.

Saying that, this is what I know about the site as it is now:

• Consists of 10-12 pages, a few are completely static, most are dynamically driven via a database and there is a huge form for users to fill out (20-30 fields) that need to be validated and checked.
• The hierarchy of the site is basically 5-6 main pages and then sub-pages within those.

So, knowing those things I wanted to know if anyone had any tips/suggestions as to how to go about doing this with the least amount of headaches.

• Would an OO approach be best in this situation?
• Since there are many static pages and the dynamic pages just need the content filled in would it be best to use some kind of basic template?

EDIT: Thanks for the answers, when I said no frameworks I basically meant anything that would require new syntax other than PHP, as whoever gets hired to work on this site after me will probably only know PHP.

Answer 1

Here's an article about how to organize your PHP project, from Rasmus Lerdorf, the architect who created the language:

http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/38-The-no-framework-PHP-MVC-framework.html

Despite the popularity of OO frameworks for PHP, Rasmus advocates a less OO approach. He knows more than anyone about PHP intended usage, and how to take advantage of its architecture for high-performance websites.

edit: In response to the comment by @theman, I'll concede the article isn't a fine work of writing, but I think the content is important. Using PHP as it was intended to be used is better than struggling against its weaknesses to make it fit an OO mold.

Answer 2

I highly recommend the Smarty templating engine for all PHP projects. It gives you an easy way to separate the logic from the presentation.