The task: summarize notes from a lecture about scaling PHP apps.
Using Jenkins to replicate WordPress sites
Avoid the mysql extension in PHP
There are a few different ways of handling MySQL in in PHP. Ext/mysql, i.e. the functions that start with mysql_xxx, is the oldest and most well known. It is also insecure, doesn't use all the database features, and will be phased out and in future releases. Use mysqli instead, or at least pdo_mysql.