Development

Just a word of warning when using PHP and Mysql - if you’re trying to make efficient code and not utilizing all sort of frameworks and abstractions, you might be in for a small surprise in a default setting.

Usually is slightly lazy and often use the mysql_fetch_assoc function. It provides each row as an associative array, and is quite convenient to work with. Recently however while optimizing some code, I figured I’d switch to using mysql_fetch_array assuming it should be more efficient. The logic being that mapping hash keys to array values wouldn’t be needed and it should use less memory.

In most web applications there’s a host of functions (or methods if speaking in the object-oriented world). It’s widely recognized, that it’s probably a good idea to name them something, which may suggest the purpose or functionality of what the function is doing, but often developers seem to fail at making a stringent naming convention. Before starting on your next big development adventure, here are a three suggested rules for naming functions.

I’m sorry but sometimes I really don’t get why even seasoned developers doesn’t learn the art of the commit message in version control system. All too often I’ve come across check-ins where the entire commit message just reads “bugfix”, “change”, “oops” or something just as mindless.

The effort of writing a useful message compared to the potential benefit seems to be one the best ratios - but of course the pay-back is usually some time away - too bad. Once you work on the same code for years - or even better inherit code from others, you’ll quickly learn to appreciate anyone who used more than 10 seconds on composing a thoughtful message for the future.

I’ve been developing web applications for some years now, and while I make no claims to being the world greatest developer, I do figure, that I do have some solid experience which may help others

• or at least encourage thoughts and discussion. This is the first in a series of posts, and while it may be from a PHP developers point of view, it may applicable to other programming languages, and maybe even beyond web applications. Here are my four tips on function parameters.

Always have a default value on all parameters

Functions parameters are often used as input to SQL queries, calling webservices or computations. Null or non-existing values often tend to break these things and throws horrible messages to the end-user.

I’ve been refactoring and refactoring some old code, and it’s kind of odd what short-cuts (or even time bombs), you’ll find in code, which apparently wasn’t supposed to live on for years. In a now retired CMS system, we had an issue every new year, when some kind of bug would reset all “schedules” for upcoming stories and content. No-one ever got around to fix it, as the system was soon to be decommissioned - but sadly the bug did survive a few years anyway.