How can the use of static methods in PHP classes affect the flexibility and maintainability of the code?

Using static methods in PHP classes can make code less flexible and harder to maintain because static methods are tightly coupled to the class itself and cannot be easily overridden or extended. To improve flexibility and maintainability, consider using dependency injection to pass dependencies to class methods instead of relying on static methods.

class DatabaseConnection {
    private $host;
    private $username;
    private $password;
    
    public function __construct($host, $username, $password) {
        $this->host = $host;
        $this->username = $username;
        $this->password = $password;
    }
    
    public function connect() {
        // Connect to the database using $this->host, $this->username, $this->password
    }
}

// Usage
$databaseConnection = new DatabaseConnection('localhost', 'root', 'password');
$databaseConnection->connect();