Good Practice in PHP

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About Me

● Lorna Mitchell● Twitter: @lornajane● PHP consultant, trainer, and writer● I live in Leeds● Website: http://lornajane.net

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Today's Outline

● Software Development Lifecycle● Databases● Source Control● Documentation● Open Source

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Software Lifecycles

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Waterfall

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Waterfall

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Agile

● Many different interpretations● Some or all of:

● iterative● customer involvement● product is always working● done in bursts called "sprints"● spec can change (in a controlled way)

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Extreme Programming

● Wildly fashionable a few years ago● Useful ideas

● Pair programming● Code for today (and refactor)● TDD (Test Driven Development)● Planning poker● Acceptance tests

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Databases

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Databases

● Not a dumping ground● Often your application bottleneck● Worth understanding

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Tools

● phpMyAdmin● http://phpmyadmin.net

● Command Line● powerful● well-documented

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Normalised Forms

● Guidelines for good table design● 1st Normal Form

● no repeating groups (e.g. comma separated lists)

● 2nd Normal Form● decouples entities and links them by relationship

(e.g. customer data separate from order)

● 3rd Normal Form <- good enough!● removes redundancy and dependent information

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Indices

● MySQL uses indexes to quickly find things● Foreign key contstraints● Columns used in where clauses

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EXPLAIN

● MySQL command● Which indexes are used● What kind of indexes● Number of rows scanned● Great for diagnosing slow queries

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Source Control

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Using Source Control

● Create a repository, add project● Check out project● Make changes● Update to get other changes● Commit changes to repo

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svn log

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­r3 | lornajane | 2010­04­25 10:32:09 +0100 (Sun, 25 Apr 2010) | 1 line

adding documentation notes­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­r2 | lornajane | 2010­04­22 09:07:56 +0100 (Thu, 22 Apr 2010) | 1 line

outlining source control and design patterns sections­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­r1 | weierophinney | 2010­03­30 17:37:27 +0100 (Tue, 30 Mar 2010) | 1 line

Added readme with outline­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

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svn diffIndex: README.txt===================================================================--- README.txt (revision 3)+++ README.txt (revision 4)@@ -31,12 +35,20 @@ to share ideas to raise profile to be told you're doing it wrong!+ (pulling up examples off our own blogs, if connection allows)

Testing (Matthew) QA tools and CI including code analysis, mess detection, etc (Lorna - QA tools; Matthew - CI)+ Static analysis+ code sniffer+ demo examples, find a suitable small codebase (joindin?)+ mess detector+ demo examples+ what else?+ Deployment

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Source Control Tools

● Subversion (svn)● http://subversion.apache.org/

● Git (git)● http://git-scm.com/

● Bazaar (bzr)● http://bazaar.canonical.com/

● Mercurial (hg)● http://mercurial.selenic.com/

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Accessing Source Control

● IDE Plugins● Trac (http://trac.edgewall.org/)● TortoiseSVN

● TortoiseGit● TortoiseBzr● TortoiseHg

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Centralised Source Control

userrepo

user

useruser

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Centralised Source Control

● Single repo (repository)● Always commit to central● Can branch centrally

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Distributed Source Control

repo

repo

reporepo

repo

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Distributed Source Control

● Many repos● Commit to local repo● Share changes between anywhere● No central point

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What If I Don't Have Source Control?

● Get some :)● Install subversion● Use a hosted solution

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Documentation

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API Docs

● Documentation generated from source code itself

● Follows code structure● classes● inheritance● methods● parameters

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PHPDocumentor

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PHPDocumentor

● PHPDocumentor● http://www.phpdoc.org/

● Uses reflection● Comments for additional information● Add descriptions to the documentation

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PHPDocumentor Comments

1 <?php 2 3 class AttendeeList { 4 private $attendees; 5 private $observers; 6 7 /** 8 * Add an attendee to the list 9 * 10 * @param integer $id Attendee identifier/array index 11 * @param string $name Full name of the attendee 12 * @access public 13 * @return boolean If attendee was successfully added 14 */ 15 public function addAttendee($id, $name) { 16 $this->attendees[$id] = $name; 17 $this->notify(); 18 } 19 20 }

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Beyond API Docs

● Tutorials● Installation instructions● Examples● FAQs● Forums● User-contributed

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Today's Outline

● Software Development Lifecycle● Databases● Source Control● Documentation● Open Source

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Other Topics

● System administration● Maintenance and bugs● Design patterns

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Open Source

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Open Source

● Free software● Free as in beer● Free as in freedom

● Licensing● BSD● GPL

● Avoid reinventing the wheel

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Open Source

● You get what you give● Participate!

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The Local PHP Scene

● LeedsPHP http://leedsphp.org● PHPNW http://phpnw.org.uk● GeekUp http://geekup.org

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Questions?

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Good Luck for your Future!