In a new post today Patrick Allaert has continued his "Readable Code" series with some tips on how you can make your API handle more.

His suggestions include:

• Changing the handling to look for multiples by default
• Avoiding inner looping (repeated looping) and try for code reuse
• Transforming a scalar value into an array to make it easier to handle this way (by casting)
• and how to handle objects in the same array-handling kind of code

He also tosses in a little mention of performance, noting that a call with range in the argument to his array-handling method is faster than looping over the same range and calling the method each time.

On NETTUTS.com today Burak Guzel has written up some good tips on how to make your code much more readable (and easier to maintain in the future. Not all of them are directly PHP related, but they are general enough to be applied in other places in your development.

Code readability is a universal subject in the world of computer programming. It's one of the first things we learn as developers. Readable and maintainable code is something to be proud of in a finished product. We can share it with others, contribute to other projects, and reuse code from applications we wrote months or even years ago.

Tips included in the list cover topics like:

• comments & documentation
• code grouping
• avoiding deep nesting
• using consistent temporary names
• using object-oriented code versus procedural
• effective refactoring

Shawn Straton has posted the second part of his look at code readability today. This time the focus is on the structure of the code - file structure, code layout, etc.

I've had the pleasure of maintaining a legacy application developed by people who were past deadline the second they had their assignment handed to them in the past and it can get really interesting rather quickly when you see how sloppy you can get when you are in such a hurry. Here are some guidelines I've given myself to ensure that the structure is correct at the end of the day.

Some of his suggestions include:

• Breaking larger files apart into smaller, easier to maintain pieces
• Correctly naming functions/variables/etc
• Tabbing/spacing in to indent code blocks
• Input validation and error checking should always be included

On the SocialGeek blog there's a recent post that looks at making stubs for your URLs, making them easier to read and remember.

This is where the fun begins of course. How many times have you been confronted with someone sending you an indecipherable, thus untrustworthy link? Right, so we agree that for a user, it is important to have a clean URL that is readable and includes the title of the page or (at least) some description related to the content. Slug time!

They explain what slugs are (and how they're useful for users) as well as how to convert a title into a "slugged" string by replacing anything that's not an A-Z or 0-9 character to remove the less URL friendly characters.

Continuing on from a previous post, the PHP in Action blog takes another look at their suggestions on "beautiful code" with some responses to the previous post.

I got some interesting comments to my previous post on "beautiful code". Some were pretty strong disagreements. So am I wrong? Did I get carried away? Did my critical faculty go on vacation somewhere nice and sunny? [...] My main point is that it's close to plain English. Not everyone agrees that that's a good thing, but I argue that we're built (genetically wired, in fact) to understand natural languages, not program code.

He reasons that code should be easier to understand than just a bunch of random functions and parameters jumbled together. He thinks that it should read more like a human could understand rather than just the machine. With function names like "assertThat" and "hasSelect", it does make it easier to follow.

Patrick Allaert has made this recent post to his blog looking at something that a large group of PHP developers seem to forget about - readable PHP code. Specifically, he mentions the "return as soon as possible" mentality.

This is the first article of a series I will dedicate to tips to write PHP code that is easier to maintain, review, refactor,... These tips may be applied for other languages but are mainly focused on PHP. The first one could be entitled as "return as soon as possible.

He compares a code example - simplifying multiple if/elses, replacing the need for multiple nested evaluations that make the code harder to read. Check out the before and after to see how it helps the flow.

David Otton has a handy little tip if you're looking for a cleaner way to deal with array data - casting it to an object.

Array notation is fine, but it can look a bit clunky when you're working with complex structures. [...] Casting the array to an object allows us to use object notation (->) and makes the code more readable.

He includes examples of the casting, showing the difference between the array and object notations including a method for creating an object based on a simple array that has basic properties built in. This sort of transformation can be useful if you want consistency through out the application - just passing objects with their properties rather than arrays.

Stefan Koopmanschap has a good reminder for developers out there in a new post to his blog - make your code much easier to understand via readable variable names and constants.

Yes, you know what code you write and you also know how it works. You can find your way around it. But what if you haven't touched a piece of code for months or even years. Or what if someone else needs to work with your code. Prevent a hell: use clearly readable variable names and constants.

He points out an example of what not to do - a specific line from the FUDForum code with multiple variables named with a single letter of the alphabet in a complex if() evaluation. He suggests even using "namespacing" of sorts (PHP6 here we come!) to help compartmentalize your variables to make things even easier.

Nick Halstead has posted a few more of his programming tips in the series he's running - three more to be exact dealing with readable code, aggregation, and code structure tips.

• Programming Tips #3 "Divide, Indent, Comment and Name": "We all started programming at some point in our life, some of us on our own, some under guidance of teachers, parents, but even now there are few tips, that should be known by everyone."
• Programming Tips #4 "Aggregation over Inheritance": "My favourite rule is to favour aggregation over inheritance."
• Programming Tips #5 "Readable Code": "It's easier to debug, and later to maintain. Make it readable by using descriptive identifiers, properly tabbing the code, and breaking down the application into functional and reusable pieces."

You can check out the full list of his programming tips in this list.