How important is it to have a solid understanding of OOP principles before using them in PHP?

It is crucial to have a solid understanding of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) principles before using them in PHP to ensure that your code is well-structured, maintainable, and scalable. Without a good grasp of OOP concepts such as classes, objects, inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism, you may end up writing inefficient and error-prone code.

class Animal {
    protected $name;

    public function __construct($name) {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function getName() {
        return $this->name;
    }
}

class Dog extends Animal {
    public function bark() {
        echo "Woof!";
    }
}

$dog = new Dog("Buddy");
echo $dog->getName(); // Output: Buddy
$dog->bark(); // Output: Woof!