NYCPHP Meetup

[Philip Camilleri]

Once again, though, Gary, I think you're mixing two separate issues.
Details about escaping & sql-injection have no place in sample-code, except
in that chapter that has to do with these issues.

That said, if you want to write a book about PHP that goes through the
lengths of outlining source-control, unit-testing, etc, all the best to
you. Honestly.

But then again, what about data-structures, standard algos, etc? How many
times have you seen "good" programmers fail to use appropriate search or
sort algorithms, or have no idea on how to use indices or hashing tables? A
*really* good programmer should know all of these things, and MUCH more.

P.





On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Gary Mort <garyamort at gmail.com> wrote:

>  I personally think that when instructing someone in how to program for a
> language, one should include good practices - including choosing good data
> structures for the example code and explaining why they are chosen.  That
> is another issue I have with programming books, they often include some
> truly atrocious code.  For example, most of the mysql sample code does not
> include escaping the data to avoid injection.  Data inputs generally do not
> include sanitizing the data.
>
> Since a lot of people will go directly from the example code to using that
> code with slight modifications on their own personal website, the examples
> should be secure.  About the only thing I'm not gung ho on is Git.  Any
> version control system[even CVS] is fine.  However, since the commands that
> will be gone over are primarily clone, add, commit, and maybe push - they
> are simply commands with equivalents in all the version control systems.
> Git simply has the benefit of github, so part of the instructional code can
> be a github repo.
>
> Also when your learning to code, your adopting habits.  If your habits are
> jumping straight to the code and not committing changes and testing, then
> it is just that much harder to learn about it later.
>
> Though I do admit calling "the right way" is controversial - I simply
> can't think of any other wording that would be short AND summarize the goal
> of the course....maybe "Learning to Program PHP Professionally"....though
> I'm sure lots of professionals would then object that their being dissed.
> :-)
>
>
> On 1/23/2012 1:42 PM, Rukbat wrote:
>
> I have to strongly second this.  Learning programming means learning
> algorithms and data structures.  Learning the job a programmer does
> includes version control, unit testing and many other things.  Learning a
> language or ten is one of those other things, but it's not part of learning
> programming, it's learning syntax.
>
> Being a competent professional programmer means learning all of them, but
> version control doesn't include syntax and programming doesn't include
> PHP.  A book on PHP shouldn't include data structures OR version control -
> those are separate subjects.
>
> My not-even-two-cents.
>
> On 1/23/2012 1:27 PM, Philip Camilleri wrote:
>
> hi Gary, to be honest I would argue that such things as Version Control
> and Unit Testing do not really belong in a language-specific text-book or
> tutorial. After all, one does not try to teach program control, binary
> logic, control and data structures, and the like in a language-specific
> text-book either, right?
>
>  I definitely *strongly* agree that programmers (the ones I come across,
> at least) seem to learn a language (PHP, Ruby, etc), but don't seem to
> understand much about the underlying or adjacent issues (version control,
> unit testing are among those; but also such fundamental things as the
> important differences between data-types, appropriate use of different
> data-structures, performance optimization, etc)
>
>  However, all of these should be taught to programmers. One can know a
> language inside-out, but without "real technical knowledge", a programmer
> can only go so far...
>
>  just my two cents...
>
>  P.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Gary Mort <garyamort at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> One thing that has annoyed me more and more over time is the way books
>> and classes go about teaching /how/ to program in a language.
>>
>> They all start off with "Hello World" and then progress slowly form there
>> to more and more complicated things.  I've noticed that even Ruby books,
>> the poster child for unit testing, proceed in this manner.
>>
>> In short, they wait until /after/ someone has developed bad habits and
>> then introduce version control and unit testing as an afterthought.
>>
>> It seems to me that the /correct/ way to teach programming is to start
>> with a little version control, then do a little unit testing, and then
>> proceed to the coding.  Especially useful is to structure the course so
>> that the users experience just /why/ version control and unit tests are a
>> good thing.
>>
>> As such, I'm going to try to put together a course on learning to program
>> PHP the right way.
>>
>> It starts off with learning a minimal number of git commands[you don't
>> need to know them all, and there is no reason to confuse yourself at this
>> point!  All you need are "git clone...", "git commit...", and "git push..."
>> while not necessary is a nice to have.  This unit will include cloning an
>> existing code repository on github, making a change, and commiting your
>> change.
>>
>> The code should include a class or two /and/ some incomplete unit tests
>> for said class.
>>
>> The next step is learning some basic unit test commands, run the unit
>> tests on the code to see them working, demonstration of how to run the
>> checks so you can see what methods are not currently covered by unit tests.
>>
>> Unit tests are fairly trivial bits of code, so the first introduction to
>> coding will be to add the missing unit tests.  Verify the addition.  Commit
>> the changes.
>>
>> After that, we can do the traditional "hello world" app....the RIGHT way,
>> ie make a unit test for it, then implement it.  Verify the new code.
>>  Commit the changes.
>>
>> Next up will be making some major functional changes to the code,
>> extending it, expanding it, etc.  At this point, we should be doing some
>> fairly radical, but simple, changes to the code where we will be deleting
>> entire sets of logic and replacing them with new sets - including changing
>> the unit tests first!  Verify the new code.  Commit the changes.
>>
>> Following all these changes, we will now have to undo some of the
>> modifications and use the original code....  so a quick review now of how
>> to use git to browse through previous commits, review differences in code,
>> etc.  And of course, as always start with unit tests, verify the changes,
>> commit the changes.
>>
>>
>> As you can see from the above, this also explains /why/ programming books
>> suck so much.  It's a lot of extra verbage to go step by step through the
>> testing/commit process - and programmers are by nature lazy!  So they skip
>> it.
>>
>> I'm curious if there are any other items people think should be
>> incorporated into this tutorial.
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