It feels like everyone agrees to accept what user notes have become (everything), so let's dive deeper into each category with this thread being about code snippets. Warning: this thread may contain crazy rambling thoughts and ideas, but that's okay (today).
A few thoughts that come to mind: * Tagged as a code snippet * Users rate it, 1-10 * Ensure the copyright/license stuff is clear * Syntax highlighting, and worrying about <?php * Dealing with PHP version requirements? * One [good] snippet on multiple manual pages? * Users comment on individual snippets? * Some notes will contain a lot of words with a small code snippet, what tag is it? * Define what makes a good one (teaches about the topic, secure, concise, ...) * Define what makes a bad one (generic, insecure, too long, overly complex, ...) Example of good versus bad: * A piece of code is well written, about 20 lines, and is about creating a password. It happens to use strlen() a couple times so is posted under function.strlen. Good? Bad? A few other questions: * Let's say a piece of code is great, voted up, and uses 5 internal PHP functions. Should we scan it, then automagically make the snippet linked to the 5 manual pages? * We don't plan on becoming a full blown code repository, or do we? Worth worrying about? * Should we suggest (not enforce) coding standards? And lastly, one problem about coding examples is how good practice can dilute the example. So for example, while teaching people about $_GET['foo'] we may end up with one of: A) echo htmlspecialchars($_GET['foo'], ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8'); // Hello World B) echo $_GET['foo']; // Hello World The (A) dilutes the idea of $_GET whereas (B) is clear. So which is the better example? Probably (A) in this case but the point is it's not straightforward. All thoughts welcome. Or, KISS? :) Regards, Philip
