In an effort to bring some kind of standard to the PHP coding world, the folks over at Evolt.org have posted a new article detailing one man's effort to standardize the code he writes.

The guidelines that I follow when writing my PHP scripts; can be helpful to have something like this if you're working on a joint project.

It cannot be emphasised enough that guidelines are only useful if they are followed. It's no use having a definitive set of coding guidelines for a joint programming project if everyone continues to write in their own style regardless. It is arguable that you can get away with different coding styles if every team member works on a different section which is encapsulated and therefore their coding style doesn't affect the other developers. Unfortunately, this only holds true until a developer leaves and someone else has to take over their role.

Standards are definitely a good thing, and an official PHP standard would be nice, but I can't see something like this forced on coders anytime soon. Too many people are entering the world of PHP daily and writing their first code to force them into a mold set by the high-level PHP coders...