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In an earlier column, I discussed the advantage of using longer and more verbose variable and method names. When you program using this more descriptive style, the code is easier to understand and more maintainable. However, a short and concise method with a revealing name may not always be sufficient when it comes to complex processes. To fill this gap, PHP has comments.

Bugs in code suck. It’s bad enough when you misspell a function or forget a semi-colon. That’s embarrassing and annoying. But what’s worse is when you write code that seems to work fine, is syntactically correct, yet still has a bug. You know you did it right, but somehow it’s also wrong. That’s not good. That makes me paranoid and second guess the rest of my work. That doesn’t help me be a Confident Coder at all.

There are two reactions to reading a new section of code for the first time. Sadly, one of the most common seems to be of confusion, dismay, followed possibly by some sort of expletive (or many, depending on the length of the code). The other is one of the most beautiful reactions, the most flattering, the most sought after reaction: “Oh, that makes sense” or “That’s cool.”

Sweaty palms, a fast heart rate and an overwhelming sense of dread.

Let’s talk a little bit about session fixation in PHP. Such a fun topic, right? Tons to get into here. But, let’s just touch the surface on two VERY SIMPLE things you can be doing now to make sure that your website is safe.

Javascript objects have a built-in function called toString() which pretty much does what you think it does - it renders a string representation of that object.

At Small Shops United, we use MadMimi for our email list software. I took a look at the PHP libraries that were available and found them extremely out of date, lacking, and just plain not working in certain areas.

So I’ve decided to move my website off of wordpress and on to jekyll - so you might notice it is a bit faster ;)

I have been making a number pad on a webpage for mobile browsers - and one problem I kept running into is double tap to zoom’ing when I didn’t want it.

The other day I found myself giving advice and revisions to a fellow PHP programmer about his cover letter for his next job application. That really inspired me to help out and write this entry.