What best practices should be followed when making changes to PHP code in Wordpress plugins to avoid issues like the one described in the forum thread?

Issue: The forum thread describes a problem where making changes to PHP code in WordPress plugins can lead to issues such as breaking the functionality of the plugin or causing conflicts with other plugins or themes. To avoid these issues, it is important to follow best practices such as creating a child theme, using hooks and filters instead of directly modifying plugin files, and testing changes on a staging site before implementing them on a live site. Best practice code snippet:

// Example of using hooks to modify plugin functionality
function custom_plugin_functionality() {
    // Your custom code here
}
add_action('init', 'custom_plugin_functionality');