Programming Guideline Checklist

This is a quick checklist of the Dev Programming Guidelines page; go there for details.

Code Formatting

• Check for whitespace:
  • Four spaces for indentation. No tabs. (Easy check: cat -et command.)
  • No trailing whitespace.
  • Spaces around parenthesis and operators. A space between if and the starting parens, spaces between method arg parens, etc. Do not use spaces around hash indexes, however.
  • Suggested line break length at 120 characters.
• Do not use extraneous parentheses, including on methods that don't need it or on postfix conditionals.
• Use postfix conditionals -- ie, do_something() if $something;
• Use human logic -- unless instead of if not.
• Favor list assignment for local variables over multiple calls to shift.
• Don't quote hash literals -- $HASH{DATA}, not $HASH{'DATA'}
• Commenting: have you commented appropriately?
• Use Carp's croak/confess and die for error reporting

DW Code Specific Conventions

• Use $LJ::HOME over $ENV{LJHOME}
• Use LJ::is_enabled() over $LJ::DISABLED
• Use $u->get_cap over LJ::get_cap($u, ...) (or add an accessor in LJ::User)
• English stripping is required for pages!
• New files need appropriate header/credit