Stefan Koopmanschap has a new post today talking about code reviews and introducing the concept for those not familiar with what they are or their usefulness.

Code reviewing is exactly what it sounds like: It is reviewing code written by another developer. There are different ways of doing this, but in the end it all comes down to having at least one other set of eyes checking any code written before it is released. There’s many reasons for doing code reviews. It can be to prevent security issues, to ensure correct performance of your application, to prevent bugs but eventually it all comes down to the more generic term of ensuring the quality of your application.

He goes on to talk about some of the most common ways to do code reviews, either in something a simple as a pull request out to face-to-face discussions as the code is being introduced. He includes some hints on preparing for the review, steps to perform the review, dealing constructively with the comments made and finally the approval. He talks about who should do the reviewing and how they can still be useful even if you work alone or with a QA department.

NetTuts.com has kicked off a new series of posts today that answers the question "Why unit test?" The series, Unit Testing Succinctly aims to define what unit testing is, approaches to implementing them and what they can do to help you and your application.

The usual mantra we hear regarding any software methodology is that it improves usability and quality, reduces development and testing time, and brings the product to market faster and with fewer bugs. These are lofty goals, but I have yet to see a methodology deliver the Grail of software development. Ultimately, the primary reason to write unit tests is to prove correctness, and this happens only if you write unit tests well.

In this first post they cover three of the more general reasons for making the dive into unit testing your applications at all. These are more "business value" kinds of ideas but they trickle down into the development level, providing value for the developers too.

• Measuring Correctness
• Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
• Code Coverage

Their main point to reinforce is the first of the three, though. Unit testing helps to measure and ensure correctness of both the code itself and the functionality it performs.

If you're relatively new to web development, you might not know exactly what kinds of benefits that using an HTTPS connection might provide. In this new article from the SitePoint PHP blog, Mufleeh Sadique covers some of the basics of HTTPS and gives some reasons why to "go HTTPS" in your applications.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or Hypertext Transfer Protocol over SSL is used for secure communication over a network, or perhaps more importantly – over the Internet. You would see https:// in the URI and a lock icon in the browser when you access a page that uses HTTPS. [...] If you ever wondered whether and how to go HTTPS with your website, we’ll attempt to clear this up in this article by briefly describing what HTTPS is about, and why and how to implement it.

He's broken the rest of the article up into a few different sections. The first answers the question "why HTTPS" with a few reasons including the most important - encrypted communication. In the second section, he starts showing you how to "go HTTPS" using a self-signed certificate to start. With the certificate installed, he moves into the last part, ensuring your application is always using the HTTPS version and redirecting anything else.

Justin Carmony has a new post today with some reasons you should attend tech conferences including both the social and technical aspects.

Ever since 2006 I had always wanted to go to a technology conference. I’d see titles of talks for ZendCon and think “Wow, that would be cool to learn about!” In 2009, I finally went to the Utah Open Source Conference (now called OpenWest), and I was blown away with all the stuff to learn. Then, in 2011, I shelled out my own money and flew to Chicago for PHP Tek, and it cost me around $3,000 after conference ticket, flights, hotel, & other expenses while at Chicago. It was absolutely awesome, and I walked away extremely grateful that I went.

He gives four main reasons to attend:

• Learning From the Talks
• Discovery of New Technologies
• Rubbing Shoulders with Giants
• Making Connections with Others

He points out that, with so many more regional conferences popping up, attending these events is even more accessible.

On NetTuts.com there's a recent post that tries to explain the "whens" and "whys" of design patterns - when using them is a good idea and why you might want to implement them as a part of your application.

There are plenty of articles that explain what design patterns are, and how to implement them; the web doesn’t need yet another one of those articles! Instead, in this article, we will more discuss the when and why, rather than the which and how. I’ll present different situations and use-cases for patterns, and will also provide short definitions to help those of you who are not so familiar with these specific patterns.

They've broken them up by topic instead of by the patterns themselves with sections like:

• Finding the Data We Need
• Reusability
• Discover-ability
• Singularity
• Controlling Different Objects

There's also a few sections that look at other patterns that really only have a handful of uses - like the Decorator, State and Composite patterns.

One of the features that's recently been introduced into the PHP language has been a feature for keeping code not only more organized, but more modular - namespacing (PHP 5.3+). In this new tutorial from PHPMaster.com they introduce you to this handy feature and include a bit of code showing their use.

Namespaces were a long awaited feature in PHP. While many other important features were released with PHP 5, namespaces were not supported until version 5.3. This led to various techniques for emulating them which, though necessary, were messy and confusing. Although namespaces have been part of PHP for over a year now, such techniques still exist. Many developers simply don't know how to use proper namespaces in their code. In this article I will explain why namespaces are important and how you can use them in your own PHP code.

He starts off by talking about what namespaces are and how they can be used to segment up applications, especially larger ones, into more manageable chunks. Basic code is included showing how to implement a namespace, referencing items inside a namespace, the "use" keyword and the __NAMESPACE__ magic variable.

In this new article from Noupe.com they look at a hot topic in the PHP community - frameworks - and give an overview of the features of five popular choices.

PHP is the world's most popular scripting language for many different reasons - flexibility, ease-of-use, among others - but often times coding in PHP, or any language for that matter, can get rather monotonous and repetitive. That's where a PHP framework can help. [...] Frameworks can also help beginners to build more stable apps by ensuring proper database interaction and coding on the presentation layer. This allows you to spend more time creating the actual web application, instead of spending time writing repetitive code.

They touch on why you should use a framework and when are appropriate times to make them a part of your development. They also point out a few common mistakes that are often made when using frameworks like using a framework above your skill level or ensuring that all other technologies will work with your framework of choice.

They finish the article off with a look at the features of five different frameworks:

• Zend Framework
• CakePHP
• Symfony
• CodeIgniter
• Seagull

On PHPBuilder.com today there's this new tutorial for those out there at the most basic level of PHP development looking to get up to speed on what PHP is and what makes it one of the most popular web scripting languages out there.

PHP (or Personal HomePage Tools) was created by Rasmus Lerdorf over three years ago to track visitors to his homepage. PHP has since evolved into a powerful server-side markup language with syntax that resembles a mix between Perl and C.

They cover all of the key questions - what is PHP, why use it and a simple explanation of a basic script (outputting the date) as well as links to other external resources where you can get more information.

On PHPBuilder.com today there's this new tutorial for those out there at the most basic level of PHP development looking to get up to speed on what PHP is and what makes it one of the most popular web scripting languages out there.

PHP (or Personal HomePage Tools) was created by Rasmus Lerdorf over three years ago to track visitors to his homepage. PHP has since evolved into a powerful server-side markup language with syntax that resembles a mix between Perl and C.

They cover all of the key questions - what is PHP, why use it and a simple explanation of a basic script (outputting the date) as well as links to other external resources where you can get more information.

Josh Sharp has posted a new article to his blog advocating something that there's still a lot of controversy around in the PHP community - frameworks (when to use them and when to not).

PHP's ease of use is also its downfall. Because there are less restrictions on the structure of the code you write, it's much easier to write bad code. But there is a solution: use a framework. [...] Of course, if you're not taken with any of the packages above you can also write your own framework, which I've done and will talk about in the next few posts. But for now, let's have a look at the common benefits of a framework.

He's broken it out to talk about the usual framework structure, MVC and how a framework can enforce good code standards. He also mentions some happy side benefits of their use including making for "pretty URLs" and the helpers that most of the frameworks come with.