Here there is a good configuration for your PHP environment. It is a good checklist to use, for example, when you update MAMP.

Open your php.ini, located at /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php5.6.10/conf/php.ini.
Keep attention to the version of PHP you are using with MAMP!

Then, find those lines and edit them:

• Higher the memory_limit. I’ve set it to 1073741824, that is 1GB 🙂 (using the amount in bytes instead of in MB):

  memory_limit = 1073741824 ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (1GB)

• Set the error reporting to E-ALL:

  ; error_reporting is a bit-field.  Or each number up to get desired error
  ; reporting level
  ; E_ALL             - All errors and warnings
  ; E_ERROR           - fatal run-time errors
  ; E_WARNING         - run-time warnings (non-fatal errors)
  ; E_PARSE           - compile-time parse errors
  ; E_NOTICE          - run-time notices (these are warnings which often result
  ;                     from a bug in your code, but it's possible that it was
  ;                     intentional (e.g., using an uninitialized variable and
  ;                     relying on the fact it's automatically initialized to an
  ;                     empty string)
  ; E_CORE_ERROR      - fatal errors that occur during PHP's initial startup
  ; E_CORE_WARNING    - warnings (non-fatal errors) that occur during PHP's
  ;                     initial startup
  ; E_COMPILE_ERROR   - fatal compile-time errors
  ; E_COMPILE_WARNING - compile-time warnings (non-fatal errors)
  ; E_USER_ERROR      - user-generated error message
  ; E_USER_WARNING    - user-generated warning message
  ; E_USER_NOTICE     - user-generated notice message
  ;
  ; Examples:
  ;
  ;   - Show all errors, except for notices
  ;
  ;error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE
  ;
  ;   - Show only errors
  ;
  ;error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR
  ;
  ;   - Show all errors except for notices
  ;
  error_reporting  =  E_ALL

• Display errors, so you can see all the errors produced by your app:

  ; Print out errors (as a part of the output).  For production web sites,
  ; you're strongly encouraged to turn this feature off, and use error logging
  ; instead (see below).  Keeping display_errors enabled on a production web site
  ; may reveal security information to end users, such as file paths on your Web
  ; server, your database schema or other information.
  display_errors = On

• Display startup errors, that is useful, for example, to intercept errors caused by new PHP extensions installed, as Intl, for example:

  ; Even when display_errors is on, errors that occur during PHP's startup
  ; sequence are not displayed.  It's strongly recommended to keep
  ; display_startup_errors off, except for when debugging.
  display_startup_errors = On

• Set the error_log directory: it may happen that a blank page appears and this is the only way to know what happened.

  ; Log errors to specified file. PHP's default behavior is to leave this value
  ; empty.
  ; http://php.net/error-log
  ; Example:
  error_log = php_errors.log
  ; Log errors to syslog (Event Log on Windows).
  ;error_log = syslog

• Set the default timezone:

  [Date]
  ; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
  ; Will be changed by MAMP to system timezone
  date.timezone = "Europe/Rome"

Those are the base modifications you have to do to have a good development environment.

Maybe you want also activate some extensions and this requires edit the php.ini file too:

• How to install the PHP Intl extension;
• Set a cacert.pem file for cURL;
• How to install xDebug.

WARNING!

Setting all the errors to be shown is the worst practice in production as those errors may provide an attacker a lot of useful information about your system: on production, ever turn off all the errors! Ever!

Remember to “Make. Ideas. Happen.”.

I wish you flocking users, see you soon!