What are the potential pitfalls of using an older programming style in PHP, as seen in the provided script?

Using an older programming style in PHP can lead to security vulnerabilities, poor performance, and difficulty in maintaining and updating the code. To address this issue, it is recommended to adopt modern PHP practices such as using PDO for database interactions, utilizing prepared statements to prevent SQL injection, and following object-oriented programming principles.

// Using PDO and prepared statements for secure database interactions
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database', 'username', 'password');
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();
$user = $stmt->fetch();