Hi Keith and Andrew, Thank you for teaching me "tricks of the trade" in the programming world, something that we will not learn in class. I have downloaded and installed both eclipse and TortoiseSVN. Now in the process of learning the software.
Thanks again. Johari On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Andrew McMurtrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > > I agree Keith and on the multiple versions point I would recommend > installing SVN and a client like Tortoise that enables you to upload each > block of work to the SVN repository. If something goes wrong you can revert > back to the last uploaded block very easily and it is great preparation for > industry. Good brownie points if you know how to use a version management > system. They are easy to install and the main thing is learning how to > setup > your first repository but there is lots of help out there and it is well > documented. > > Andrew > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf > Of Keith Allpress > Sent: Friday, 24 October 2008 10:49 p.m. > To: [email protected] > Subject: [phpug] Re: Efficient way to write PHP codes > > > Hi Johari > I need to tell you that it is not PHP horrors that is your problem. > All languages and all systems can give you horrors. > Your problem is in the way you approach your project. > The single biggest mistake that new programmers make is to try to do too > much at once, > writing too much code, and then trying to debug it all in a big batch > effort. > By their very nature, programming errors are entanglements. > The best approach is always > 1. get it going from the very first lines of code you write. > 2. keep it going by writing small parcels of code that you can test. > 3. test them. > It is the nature of programming, something you do will affect something > else. > There are many "variables", I mean scientific variables. > Any good scientist tries to get control over them. > The whole point of all of these frameworks and programming techniques is > just to try to keep the errors isolated. > The idea I am talking about is "incremental development". > Before any large major change or improvement (in your case accessing a > database) the programmer does a kind of "checkpoint". > You want to be confident that things are OK to a certain point. > Its like project management, where you have milestones. > You also want to be able to go back to your milestone (a saved version > that works) easily. > Keep a good number of versions of your program as you develop it, so you > can use it to "time travel". > (I have been known to keep over 100 versions of a complex program as it > develops). > There are many "tricks of the trade" that programmers use to project > manage their own work. > One way of "going back" when you think you have made a wrong turn, is to > "comment out" your recent changes. > In fact this is a lot easier than incrementally reloading all your code > section by section. > You should be easily able to find errors doing it this way, it should > never take 1 1/2 days just to track down a missing semicolon. > Now in the case of uploading to a server, because you are inexperienced. > you need to get some confidence in that process. > The amount of code that you upload will depend on how confident you are > in undertsanding that environment, > so I definietely think that you tried to upload too much at once. > Hope that helps > =K= > > > > > > > > > Johari wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I'm still new to this forum. Currently I'm at final Semester in CPIT > > doing Grad Dip in ICT. My project is to build an e-commerce website > > and I have done the E-R diagram, Data Dictionary, etc for the > > database. I was given a space at Techlabs Server and I had created a > > database tables and inserted sample data. I had finished testing all > > type of SQL queries needed and tested directly with the MySQL Database > > Server. It's all fine even though I had few difficulties at first. > > > > The "real" problem started when I used PHP to communicate with the > > MySQL Server. When I uploaded my finished "test" version and run it in > > my browser, I get a blank page - obviously it's not running as > > expected, and I didn't know what's wrong with my code. I use Notepad++ > > to configure the codes. > > > > Therefore, I had to re-code again.... and check my codes line by line > > comparing to the working codes just to find out what had went wrong. > > Then I found out that I missed the (;) in one of the codes. This > > problems, took me 1 1/2 days. That's a setback since I was thinking to > > write the PHP codes and upload it to the server bit by bit. Now maybe > > I have to do everything locally, and only upload the final one. But I > > also want to make sure that it will work with the server (as part of > > my QA plan). > > > > I have read few books and I was told how to write a good code, but not > > really how to write it efficiently... so, while I'm still googling > > around to find an efficient way to write a good code, can anyone can > > give me some advise based on your experience dealing with PHP horrors? > > > > Thank you very much for your time. > > > > Johari > > > > > > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
