NYCPHP Meetup

[David Krings]

At 06:52 PM 9/19/2006, you wrote:
>David:
>
>Great comments -- including the one about commenting.
>Documentation...can that be outsourced?!

Yes, I do stuff like that professionally among other things and I don't 
really care for it. The documenting of what others did part. I'm working on 
my "own" design spec right now and that is tricky, but fun. Documentation 
is a pain in the rear, especially when you want it to be both detailed and 
accurate. I find it easier to discuss specs with someone and write them 
down, when I am not the one who codes the project (not that I am great at 
coding to begin with). At least write some outline beforehand, add plenty 
comments in the code, and then make a description afterwards about which 
script calls which function, include files, and what it passes on to others 
and expects itself. Also, write down what you shove into $_session. I found 
that I use(d) it often as the garbage can of my system and just brainlessly 
jammed it with variables (was so much fun once I figured out how easy it is 
with PHP). Also think hard if you really need this or that, you will be 
amazed with how few variables you may get by without abusing the same one 
for different stuff. I guess the people on this list can give a list that 
wraps around the world of dos and don'ts. Those are just a few that I found 
to be lifesavers for me as a rookie....uhh, and how could I forget, always 
initialize all your variables and assign them some reasonable start values 
that either are proper defaults or when there are no defaults will crash 
your script if you don't assign something useful before first use.


>Interesting comment regarding emails. So where does Craigslist fit in?

Tja, I never looked at that page up until now, but I heard a lot about it. 
Shows that simplicty can be useful and gets to the point. That page is 
HTML, but I guess if flat ASCII supported links  they'd just used that.

>As I see it, HTML emails are a real pain and can be a real bandwidth
>hog, but I think the world expects them. Geez, my kids probably expect
>the email to have music and video.
>
>Cliff


Those who expect it don't have a clue about what efficiency and 
compatibility means. I use my old Eudora which does a horrible job at the 
HTML emails, which saved me many times from nasty stuff. Give your kids a 
text only mail reader. ;)

         Best regards,

                 David K.