In CodeSniffer, a coding standard is basically represented by an empty class that extends PHP_CodeSniffer_Standards_CodingStandard. I could not get the CodeSniffer to find my coding standard, though, and found the documentation lacking about where to put it, how to name it, and how to refer to it in the --standard switch.

After an email to Greg Sherwood (developer of the package) Stefan figured out his issue and has shared the solution in this post (step by step).

"Unit testing is a test that validates that individual units of source code are working properly", that's what Wikipedia says about unit testing. That's general knowledge.

But what motivates me even more than the increased software quality is that it saves me development time. This sounds odd as you might believe that TDD means writing more code.

A real-life example is included (an internal invoicing system) with the steps they'd follow to test it normally via the browser (slow) or through the automated tests (fast!)

When it comes to coding style, there are are various ideas about how you should write the individual lines of code. The usual argument is about "how long should a line of code be"? There's more to it than that, though. Developers should also take into account line volume ("number of lines") and line density ("instructions per line").

He mentions the PEAR style guide when talking about line length, reading code like and sentence in line volume/density and how the "shorter is better" concept can be pushed to its extreme limits taking code into the unreadable zone.

Before jumping into the development of a Zend Framework coding standard for the PHP_CodeSniffer Pear package, I spent some time revisiting and compiling the available Zend Framework coding standards into a handy one-paged Pdf document.

You can download the file here or, if you want something a bit more "spread out", check out the coding standards on the Zend Framework website.