Regardless of our current skill level, we all were beginners at one point in time. Making classic beginner mistakes comes with the territory. Today, we've asked a variety of Nettuts+ staff authors to chime in with their list of pitfalls and solutions - in a variety of languages. Learn from our mistakes; don't do these things!

The article starts off with some Javascript tips, but quickly gets into some more PHP specific things like:

• Use Ternary When Appropriate
• Use Guard Clauses
• Keep Methods Maintainable
• Avoid Deep Nesting
• Don't Overuse Variables

There's also two "extras" thrown in more concerning general programming practices - using methods to represent actions and some basic code readability suggestions.

Is it better to be an Expert in a framework like Zend (a certified Zend Developer) or know a little bit about everything. [...] In sum, it's just taking too much time for me to master Drupal, Magento, and other popular CMS/Frameworks. So I'm wondering if I should just specialize is one framework/CMS.

Most of the comments follow along the same idea - it's good to be an "all-arounder" and know several different technologies, but it's also good to be an expert (or as close as you can) in one or more technologies. As one comment puts it:

In my experience, it's best to have a specialty, but not have a too narrow focus. There's a lot going into a web site - programming, design, usability, marketing, economy, etc. Understanding a number of those fields makes it easier to work with other people.

New developers need quite a time to familiarize themselves with the rules and conventions in PEAR. With the new role of mentors in PEAR2, they will have a contact person they can ask in that cases. But in many cases the same questions will get asked which will get boring for the mentoring developer, so we need a Mini-FAQ with a list of things the newbie should know.

They're looking for comments posted to the entry to help define this guide. So far, a suggested outline has been proposed by David Coallier for both general information and developer-specific details.

Among the options, there was "General PHP", "PHP Design", "PHP & XML" and "PHP Security". The one that came out on top, however, was "PHP & Databases" with 26.4% of the vote. Next in line was tied up between two options - "General PHP" and "PHP & Business/Ingegration" both with 15.3% of the votes.

Be sure anc check out (and vote on) their new poll for the week asking readers what they think is the biggest advantage of making to move to PHP5 for their scripts.

Main items on the list are:

• General ways to help
• Helping the QA team
• Helping with PEAR
• Helping with the Documentation
• Helping via Perl (extensions)
• Heliping with the PHP Core

Under each of these main points there are several sub-points for even more ideas of places to get involved. It's a great list, and you can get even more information on helping in an area by clicking on its title to be taken to the official page.

• A few class implementations were completed
• PHP-GTK 2 was made PHP 5.2 ready
• A fix for the Win32 crash has been identified
• More documentation updates
• And more online resources for PHP-GTK users

Read on for more details about the PHP-GTK news from the first week of June 2006. It's browken down into three difference categories this time - Development, Documentation, and General changes - with a load of updates, espeically to the documentation.

The list includes:

• PHPNuke (general)
• Drupal (general)
• Coppermine (images)
• WordPress (blogging)
• phpBB (forums)

Tim includes links to all of the resources and screenshots of each package in action. It's interesting to have a summary of some of the more major offerings lined up like this - a good starting place to branch from for other CMS research.

the series as times goes on, but for now they cover a good range of topics, including:

• Your first page with PHP code
• A Little about Variables
• Passing Data To and From Functions
• Using the File System

This month's meeting will be a discussion of the Zend Framework - taking it for a test-drive, mentioning its current state/direction it's going, and showing quickly how to use it all (a code tutorial).

The suggestions include things like:

• Enabling compression of HTML with the output_handler settings in your php.ini
• Move from file-based sessions to shared memory sessions
• Use output buffering
• Don't use images when text will do

Some of the suggestions are just general web development items (such as that last one), but some web developers out there need to be reminded of them. There are still too many image only sites out there...