Theoden's Code Tips

Theoden picking up the slack.

Ryan — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:51:00 GMT

Now my brother Theoden has decided to pick up the torch and dispense his own tips. His first tip describes the brilliant LEN function in SQL Server.

Try SELECT LEN('1234 ') to see what he means.

Theoden's code tips #4

Ryan — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:05:00 GMT

Another good tip from 8/31/2004:

when you make CVS log messages, make them as vague as possible to make sure that people have to diff old versions to see what you did. "added validation" is a good example, though perhaps a little too specific since it gives one a clue as to what was changed.

Theoden's code tips #3

Ryan — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:18:00 GMT

This handy tip came in on 12/07/2004.

arbitrarily use a perl script to send email, even if your entire application is done in a different language

Theoden's code tips #2

Ryan — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 14:45:00 GMT

Since Theoden is getting a new job that doesn't involve legacy code, I've been going through my chat logs to pick out more. This tip came in on 2/26/2004.

if you have a logical grouping of business logic, split the logic into two separate functions. Like so:
 eoc_check_toxicity()
 eoc_toxicity_checks() 
that way if you accidentally delete one of the functions, at least some of the logic will still be there

Theoden's code tips #1

Ryan — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 11:56:00 GMT

Every now and then I get some coding pointers from my brother as he works through PHP legacy code. Here's #1:

litter your code with unused variables and assignments - if you have too few variables it'll make your application too light and it'll float away