February 2004
Intermediate to advanced
672 pages
14h 32m
English
Content preview from Advanced PHP ProgrammingBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,







O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 8. Designing a Good API
What makes some code “good” and other code “bad”? If a piece of code functions properly and has no bugs, isn’t it good? Personally, I don’t think so. Almost no code exists in a vacuum. It will live on past its original application, and any gauge of quality must take that into account.
In my definition, good code must embody qualities like the following:
It is easy to maintain.
It is easy to reuse in other contexts.
It has minimal external dependencies.
It is adaptable to new problems.
Its behavior is safe and predictable.
This list can be further distilled into the following three categories:
It must be refactorable.
It must be extensible.
It must be written defensively.
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access