Keep Your Code Clean (Part 1)

Meaningful and Pronounceable Variable Names

We try to use names that can have meaning and readable names.
Instead of

$variable = $date->format('y-m-d');

we try hard to find a name that describes the value the most:

$dateOfToday = $date->format('y-m-d');

Searchable Names

We try to make searchable values.
Instead of

$responseCode = $response->getValue(200);

we try hard to find names to values we need

$responseCode = $response->getValue(OK_RESPONSE);

Type-Hinting and Return Type-Hinting

The larger the application, the more the code. The more the code, the more important it is to have a clear overview on what methods accept as parameters, what they do and what they return, without having to study each method all over again. So instead of having:

function myFunction($input)
{
// do something
}

you will find in our code something like:

function isWorkingDay(string $input): bool
{
// do somthing
}

Minimum Nesting and Early Returns

To make the code readable and understandable we reduce the complexity by avoiding nested if-else statements where possible. So instead of having

function isWorkingDay(string $input): bool
{
    $nameOfDay = strtolower($nameOfDay);
    if($nameOfDay === 'monday') {
        return true;
    } elseif($nameOfDay === 'tuesday') {
        return true;
    } elseif($nameOfDay === 'wednesday') { 
        return true; 
    } elseif($nameOfDay === 'thursday') { 
        return true; 
    } elseif($nameOfDay === 'friday') { 
        return true; 
    }
    return false;
}

you will find in our code something like:

const WORKING_DAYS = ['monday', 'tuesday', 'wednesday', 'thursday', 'friday'];
function isWorkingDay(string $input): bool 
{ 
    return in_array(strtolower($input), WORKING_DAYS));
}

another example of this is, instead of:

function fibonacci(int $n) {
    if ($n < 50) {
        if ($n != 0) {
            if ($n != 1) {
                return fibonacci($n -1) + fibonacci($n -2);
            } else {
                if ($n < 0) {
                    return 'Not supported';
                } else {
                return 1;
                }
            }
        } else
            return 0; 
        }
    } else {
        return 'Not supported';
    }
}

we would do this as follows:

function fibonacci(int $n): int
{
    if ($n === 0 || $n === 1) {
        return 1;
    }
    if ($n < 0 || $n > 50) {
        throw ne \Exception('Integer must be between 0 and 50');
    }
    return fibonacci($n - 1) + fibonacci($n - 2);
}