Even PHP needs coding standards
As a software development manager, I've always felt source code could use a bit more of standards. That was with professionally trained C++ programmers. Then we began helping customers migrate home brew sites written in open source languages like PHP and I realized most of our time was spent just sorting out how to read what had been done before.
For whatever reason, Scandanavians love standards. Fredrik Kristiansen of DB Medialab in Oslo has helpfully looked at Todd Hoff's C++ Coding Standards and made a rather nice set of PHP Coding Standards I wish every high-schooler would adopt.
Going forward, our pricing for site migrations will take code consistency into account. Quoting from Fredrik's document:
When a project tries to adhere to common standards a few good things happen:
- programmers can go into any code and figure out what's going on
- new people can get up to speed quickly
- people new to PHP are spared the need to develop a personal style and defend it to the death
- people new to PHP are spared making the same mistakes over and over again
- people make fewer mistakes in consistent environments
- programmers have a common enemy :-)