David Krings wrote:
Unfortunately, I still have a really tough time trying to work out the
logic of what I want a script to do, and my code is pretty primitive &
verbose because of that (I have to painstakingly step through each
little bit of logic in order to wrap my head around anything).
Welcome to my world, you are not alone.
That's always good to know. ;)
What do you guys use when working out the logic of an application
you're building? I'm guessing that would be some kind of flow chart?
What I do is write the commentary first. I write down each step that I
know or think needs to be done in the respective sequence. It isn't as
formal as a flow chart, but it does the same job: first think about what
you need to do and then do it. Of course there will be changes while
writing the code and when testing and fixing bugs, but that will happen
no matter what you do. If you rather make a flow chart, go ahead, but
you do want to add plenty of commentary anyway.
Commentary is paramount--got it.
Well, I went through the odysee of IDEs and still plan on finishing my
review of all the ones that I tested out. My three recommendations are
LuckaSoft's EnginSite Editor for PHP, Waterproof's PHP Editor, and
NuSphere's PHPEd.
Thanks for the thorough reviews; that helps tremendously!
Please forgive the numerous questions, but I'm 40+ years old and want
to approach this professionally, not just be some hack who writes
sloppy code for for beer & pizza money and doesn't care about the client.
Don't underestimate beer and pizza! I think the best approach is to
schedule a lot of time and come up with a few projects that you are
interested in. Then pick one, write specs for it, establish milestones,
create the outline (either as comments or as flow chart), then star
coding, and finally do a lot of testing. When you are done, take the
project and put it somewhere in the corner of your hard drive and start
over again. You will be amazed how much better you are now and how much
better your code is. I work on a project now for three years and found
myself in the position to write code for a task that I coded before in a
different context. I didn't use the old code, but created new scripts.
Turns out that the new ones are half the size, run more stable, use less
variables and flags, require less db queries, and are just much much
better designed and written. I ditched the old code and used the new code.
And don't get hung up on creating something that isn't there yet. I work
on a picture and video archiver/viewer and there are tons available that
are probably much better than mine. But with that approach you will
quickly find out that everything was already coded before. Other than
that, I completed an MP3 archiving/player system, started a bug tracking
and CRM tool (was too big of a task for me), and spend some time writing
a custom CMS for eLearning, but quit the job due to budget cuts (the
feds needed the money for the useless wars rather than for social
services for children and families).
I'm not a drinker, but, yeah, pizza is not to be underestimated!
What you're saying here is key to what I've been doing wrong: When I'm
working on a web or print design project I document & organize
everything and I have very specific methodologies I follow (worked out
over years of trial & error), yet when I work with PHP I tend to
approach things in a haphazard manner--i.e. I just dive head-first into
the code and then splash around wildly trying not to drown.
That's not good. If I want to do this professionally then I need to
treat even test/learning projects as if they were the real thing, just
like my other projects. Thanks for helping me see that.
And by all means ask as many questions as you can. Ask tons of
questions. The answers that you will get will propel you to the next
level. I don't think I'd be on the level I am at now if it wasn't for
relentless asking on NYPHP Talk.
I absolutely will do that.
Regards,
Bev
_______________________________________________
New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List
http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online
http://www.nyphpcon.com
Show Your Participation in New York PHP
http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php
