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Best Programming Practices For Web Developers
An anonymous reader writes "Web pages have become a major functional component of the daily lives of millions of people. Web developers are in a position to make that part of everyone's lives better. Why not try using traditional computer programming and best practices of software engineering?"
"We've stopped hiring contractors now, because frankly I'm tired of cleaning up other people's shit." Sorry the Romans are on the phone and are wondering if .....never mind.
Hey you work in X you clean up the Y of the X that went before you.
Too many developers depend on sniffing the User-Agent string to determine browser capabilities.
What's wrong with that? A user who knows enough to change their UA should know that it might break things.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Definitely. And because of this ability to adopt a particular style, Perl is the only language I know that I can walk away from for a year, and still be able to write a simple script without having to look at any reference material.
Assuming no-one else modifies your code in that time.
PERL is a glue language and should be used sparingly. Anyone who thinks they can write substantial programs (>20 lines (yes, I am being sarcastic)) in PERL that will be maintainable, reliable and testable is severely misguided.
I have seen it abused far too much to recommend its use for anything other than 10-line scripts.
Stick Men
Anyone who doesn't think this is possible has never learned Perl.
Everyone has their own "expert opinion" on what constitutes "good code." PERL is so baroque and full of exceptions to rules, non-obvious conveniences (e.g. command-line parameter processing), default variables, case requirements etc. that it is impossible for mere mortals to produce code that is understandable and maintainable by anyone other than themselves, and certainly not to anyone learning the language. It's probably easier to get a newbie productive on an existing C++ project than on a PERL one, and C++ sucks. Indeed, someone once said that C++ is an octopus made by nailing extra legs on a dog, and they're not far wrong.
Object orientation in PERL is not part of the core language, but is a hack based on the way that the symbol table works. You can not possibly seriously suggest that it's a good idea.
PERL is duct tape. It's covered in fluff and hair. Let me know when PERL 6 is ready.
Stick Men