Main Content

We not only teach PHP and Python - we teach good PHP and Python Practice!

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-06-18 10:23:15 - Graham Ellis

This week, I'm running a private PHP course in North London, and a private Python course in Bristol ... and it's confirmed and re-confirmed the need for programming standards to be included from the beginning just as much as the mechanisms of the language. I'm not only teaching people how to write applications and parts thereof, but also good applications ... and that means:
• Code which is easy to use
• Code which is fit for purpose
• Code which can be reused within other similar applications
• Code which is easy to alter if necessary
• Code which is robust and reliable
• Code which is well tested, and easy to retest when amended
• Code which is well documented - for the user and for the follow-up programmer
• Code which runs fast enough
• Code which is efficient in programmer's time as it is written
• Code which is as portable as necessary
• Code for which support and maintenace skills will be available
• Code which is secure

Those are headlines ... I could write chapter and verse on each of them and they are all important. In fact the mechanisms of the particular language chosen should be subservient to providing something which meets these needs. There could be a complete course in the techniques needed, and how you may apply them in each language - and it's no mistake that I will always introduce comments in the first chapter of notes, and I will talk about good variable naming conventions early on. That's just for starters - design, test driven dvelopment, writing re-usable modules, UML, spltting code into named blocks, exceptions, version control and more issues will crop up all through your course.