What happens if I open up a live .php file and just paste new working code and hit "Save"? What happens on the end user-side if I do that? Furthermore, I'm with DO and I don't think I've ever rebooted my virtual server.
So you're sayign what I can do it duplicate my site onto a subdomain, test the features there, and when they're bug-free, I can just copy paste the new code into the source files on the live site?