So, the other day, I saw a horrible thing. I saw two PHP associative arrays that needed to be combined into one, and the worst example of NOT using PHP’s built in functions to combine them. They weren’t using array_merge - instead they were looping through each value.
When working at “the triangle” we used junction points on windows to link to repositories that we needed to run the code base - but weren’t necessary for the project. (see creating junction points on windows with linkd.exe.)
While working on a larger site that I may need to use many external libraries, I realized I need to come up with a better __autoload() function (for example, I think it was DOMPDF that had its own autoload function as well. Last time I used that, I had to hack my own autoload to use their code as well to locate files). I researched into SPL autoload functionality, and I’ve found what I need.
This is more of a proof of concept than anything else - as most of my scripts are ;) But, let’s say you have some files that have css in them, either external stylesheets, internal one with style tags or even style attributes - and you need to update the browser support. Wouldn’t it be great to have a tool that could look through these files and point out that there are incompatibilities?
I hate filling out login forms to discover that half of my password is in the username box. Let’s talk about why - and then a solution.
We’ve all been there before, committing code - and then realizing that it was broken (hrm - our unit test didn’t catch it? or… “what unit test?” if you’re in another environment). Well, there is a solution.
Apparently, a few programmers I know have been getting confused about access of public, public static variables in PHP classes. I’ve written this example code with the following comments to explain what will work - and what won’t.
One of the biggest time wasters I deal with is parsing out static web designs given to me by designers. They don’t know programming, so they design it with static HTML in mind. Even if you’re using a tool like dreamweaver, updating static pages can be a hassle. Then, a lot of times, they have to remove their ’lorem ipsum’ text and send it to me - and then I continue to chop it up. Now, I’m talking about smaller 5 to 10 page sites here, not huge sites like JEMDiary or something. However, that idea birthed…
A while ago, I decided that I needed to have a better backup solution for my file server. After doing some research on various systems, I let my inner programmer take over - in addition to my desire to NEVER LOSE ANYTHING - and I defaulted to use SVN.