K I S S

I’ve been perusing the boards over at PHP Freaks

lately and I’ve noticed a few annoying practices that I want to highlight. In my experience, keeping things as simple as possible helps to keep the code clean and usable. It’s easier to debug, easier to change, and lasts longer. When dealing with something like PHP, you inevitably run into the problem of differentiating languages. PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, UGH! Far too many people combine everything in one file and try to make sense of it. It’s rough enough for some people to keep one language straight, let alone 4. So, let’s use some common sense. It’s possible to separate them, so why don’t we?

 

Let’s start with the simple ones. CSS and Javascript are easily put in separate files. Creating a .js and .css file is a good practice and should be a standard step in all web creation. Granted, this should be done with some additional common sense. Creating either file for one or two small additions is not necessary unless those functions/definitions are used frequently through several pages.

 

So, we’ve removed 2 of the 4 languages and separated them out to their own files. How about the PHP and HTML? Well, there’s a fairly easy solution there too. I, personally, use the Smarty Template Engine. I believe there are other template systems out there, but Smarty works for me and I like it. Basically, you put all your php code in one file, make calls to $smarty->assign() and variables from php appear as Smarty variables in the template. From there you can easily “print” them in the template by using something like {$var} … Extremely flexible. Smarty also allows you to do some primitive programming. Enough to make it useful, but not so much that you get confused once more by 2 languages in one file.

 

So now we’ve separated everything into it’s own file. It’s easier to read, easier to understand, and easier to make changes. Imagine being able to simply change the HTML only and not worry about impacting the logic in the PHP program! Ahh.. flexibility!

 

Next on my pet peeve list is programmers who just won’t use functions like sprintf()… Let’s try an example here.. Which looks simpler :

 

$query = ‘SELECT id, name, age, salary FROM users WHERE name LIKE “%’ . $name . ‘%” AND age > ‘ . $age . ‘ AND salary > ‘ . $salary . ‘ ORDER BY name’;

 

or this :

 

$query = sprintf(‘SELECT id, name, age, salary FROM users WHERE name LIKE “%%%s%%” AND age > %d AND salary > %f ORDER BY NAME’, $name, $age, $salary);

 

Now, at first glance, the second one looks a little suspect. That’s because I chose what might be considered an ugly example. But, an experienced programmer can tell at a glance what the intended value of the 3 variables used in the query should be. String, Decimal, and Float. In addition to making it look a little nicer, you also gain some security. If someone snuck a string in for $age, it has no effect. So even if you skip sanitizing your variables, you still have a little bit of security. (Don’t skip sanitization…)

 

Simple additions to your coding toolkit, tons and tons of enhancements to your skillset. Please, code responsibly.