On Sat, 2003-06-28 at 13:10, Jay Fitzgerald wrote:
> I have been writing PHP for almost a year now and someone on phpfreaks told
> me the other day that my code was very sloppy.
>
> Since I want to more more into programming than design, can anyone
> recommend where to learn how to make sure your code is clean, optimized and
> as error-free as it can get? Even if it is the style of how to write the
> code, please let me know....I know noone can be the perfect programmer, but
> I would at least like to be a decent programmer :)
>
> Jay
I would suggest reading some coding standards from, say, the Linux
kernel source, PEAR, and whatever else you can find. They'll disagree
with one another, but you'll get an idea of what kinds of things people
find important.
One book that is simply excellent is 'Code Complete: A Practical
Handbook of Software Construction', by Steve McConnell (Microsoft
Press). It's pretty big but it's well written, easy to read, and
usually presents a few different methods along with discussions and
comparisons.
Some simple tricks with PHP include using a template engine to keep
your code and your output separated (i.e. don't put your PHP code
directly into the HTML or vice versa--even though that's perfectly fine
for small jobs, small jobs always seem to turn into bigger ones); turn
on error_reporting(E_ALL) and ini_set('display_errors', true) when
you're testing (you can turn them off for production) so you can make
sure your script runs with no errors, notices, or warnings; writing
your functions and class methods to rely on globals as little as
possible so they are more easily transferable to new situations; and so
on.
However, the topic is pretty huge, everyone has an opinion, and I'm
sure that for every suggestion I or anyone else makes there are good
arguments against.
Good luck,
Torben
--
Torben Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> +1.604.709.0506
http://www.thebuttlesschaps.com http://www.inflatableeye.com
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