~ Presented at WordCamp Gold Coast 2011 ~

1. Code Quality, Standards,
and Best Practices:
Discuss!

2. First things first...
1. I'm @Japh
2. Hobart-based Developer (who likes to travel!)
3. Specialties:
WordPress, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, jQuery
4. Paid to work on the web since 1998

3. Code, Standards, Best
Practices. Who cares anyway?
1. Your users / customers / clients
2. The community
3. Potential employers
4. You!

4. “Knowledge is power”
But what do you need to know?
1. Coding according to standards
2. Following best practices
3. How to do things the “WordPress Way”
4. When to do what (easier said than done...)
Quote: Sir Francis Bacon

5. “With great power comes
great responsibility”
1. WordPress is an Open Source platform
2. Release themes into the wild
3. Release plugins into the wild (even easier!)
4. Posting code snippets
Quote: Stan Lee via Uncle Ben

6. “Imagination is more
important than knowledge”
1. Being able to apply knowledge
2. Solving problems you’ve never seen before
3. When should you use Custom Post Types?
When should you add extra database tables?
4. Knowing where to look...
Quote: Albert Einstein

7. “I do not carry such information in
my mind since it is readily available
in books.”
• http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Coding_Standards
• http://codex.wordpress.org/CSS_Coding_Standards
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Site_Design_and_Layout
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review
• http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_API’s
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_Tables_with_Plugins
• In case it’s not clear… WordPress Codex!
Quote: Albert Einstein

8. “No man is an island”
1. Not much hasn’t been done before by
someone somewhere
2. Be a part of the community. Ask questions,
give answers
3. Peer reviewing code
4. No stupid questions, only stupid not to ask
Quote: John Donne

9. “Never neglect the little
things”
1. Skimping on quality hurts your client, your
client’s clients, and you
2. Proper planning. Use milestones, and be
realistic
3. Client education and communication
Quote: Og Mandino

10. Thank you!
• Slides are here: http://japh.com.au/wcgc2011/
• Follow me here: http://twitter.com/Japh
• Talk to me here!