PHPDeveloper.org

Soledad Penades' Blog: Signs your PHP needs refactoring

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 16:26:00 -0500

As mentioned by Ed Finkler, there's a list of signs your PHP needs refactoring from Soledad Penades.

I have had to go through a php application recently which has given me more than one headache and has required me to use all my possible patience. While working with it, I thought This is good material for an article, so that nobody else does the same in the future, and nobody else will need to experience the same displeasure as I have had to.

So here are the signs your PHP application needs a serious refactoring, right now

Included in the list are things like:

Uses global variables
Everything's an array
The neverending switch
Interface inconsistency

It hits on one of the thing that bugs me too, the problem of "Brackets galore" - so many subarrays that you have to resort to three or more sets of bracketed keys to get to the value you want. It's bad enough trying to follow someone else's code without having to "trace down" an array to figure out which of the values they're talking about.

Inside Open Source: Possible addition to array syntax in PHP

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 07:34:00 -0600

According to this new post on the Inside Open Source blog from APress, Andi Gutmas has made a for a new syntax to be added to the existing array functionality in PHP.

The suggestion involves the use of brackets ([ and ]) to declare the initial array, similar to the way other languages (even Javascript) work.

The current split among the big players in PHP development looks to be about 50/50. The general thought of the opposition is that it is an unnecessary change that will only lead to confusion in the future. Why create two ways of doing the same thing?

PHP-GTK Community Site: Using GtkSourceview to build a php editor with syntax highlighting

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:34:00 -0600

There's a new tutorial posted on the PHP-GTK Community site today - a quick one showing how to use GtkSourceview to create a simple PHP editor with syntax highlighting.

This widget is nearly usable as a real php-gtk IDE. It extends GtkSourceView widget and internally manages both a text buffer and language object classes.

They provide the code, but not too much in the way of explanation for it. Thankfully, most of it is pretty straight-forward. There are a few things that the script has to manage to make the it work - a text buffer for the data, a viewer (window), and the syntax highlighting component. For the view, there are a few handy functions already built in so you won't have to create them - undos, the syntax highlighting, line numbering, markers, and bracket highlighting.