title: How do you test code without uploading to the web server?
body: <p>(This is a high level software development question)</p>
  
  <p>I'm running a web app.  In the past, to test new features, I have uploaded under a subdirectory such as test/.  This generally broke all the URLs, so I'd have to redo the URLs in the test code. Then I'd have to rename all the URLs when I pushed it to the main site.  I'm sure there's a better way but don't know what people usually do.</p>
  
  <p>Do you install a web server on your laptop?  I could always buy a cheap computer and run it as a test web server, I suppose.</p>
  
  <p>Eventually I'd like to have a version control system with a friend also coding, so maybe we'd both need to install Apache and MySQL on our laptops?  That way we don't interfere with each other when testing new code.</p>