Zend Coding Standards
I’ve always adhered to my own “standards” when writing code but once I started working more with other developers I realized that we didn’t agree on what the “right” way of writing code was. Most of it was just simple things like does the curly brace go on the same line or on the next line. At SpinWeb we have had coding standards in place for a while. We all kinda loosely followed the standards because they were in place pretty much before we got there and they didn’t fit with how each of us felt.
While looking at using the Zend Framework for our work at SpinWeb I came across the coding standards and realized there are a lot of benefits to having someone else set the standards. Just one example is there are less discussions on the “right” way and we can make small modifications if we all agree but otherwise we just live with the standards that Zend has laid out.
What I have come realize is that even while I was always trying to follow my own standards I would always stretch them when I was in a hurry or something else had my attention and since they were my own standards it wasn’t that big of a deal[for some reason]. I’ve been doing my best to follow the Zend Coding Standards for a couple months now and everything has really become habit and I find myself really pushing myself more and more to follow the standards.
If you run into the same types of issues or just want more “official” standards Zend has a nice start.
