Month: February 2015

PHP tags – once and for all. Yet again.

For those of us who have been using PHP since the early version 3 days and such, here is a modern day refresher for PHP tags:

If a file is pure PHP code, it is preferable to omit the PHP closing tag at the end of the file. This prevents accidental whitespace or new lines being added after the PHP closing tag, which may cause unwanted effects because PHP will start output buffering when there is no intention from the programmer to send any output at that point in the script.

And from the comment on the same page:

Since PHP 5.4 the inline echo <?= ?> short tags are always enabled regardless of the short_open_tag (php.ini) setting.

For me personally, closing PHP tags are a part of muscle memory.  I’ll have to unlearn that, I guess.  And in regards to the inline echo tags, I was under the impression that they are being phased out together with the other short tags (<? … ?>).  Apparently, I was wrong.  They are here to stay.  Which explains why there are in PSR-1, PSR-2, and in CakePHP 3 (which requires PHP 5.4.16 and fully adopts PSR-2) in particular.

1,000 Chrome Experiments

Chrome Experiments is a collection of projects that push the limits of the Google Chrome browser.  They’ve recently reached a 1,000 contributions.  Some look simplistic, some are stunning.  Some are just little toys, yet others have practical application.  Definitely deserves a minute of your time.  Which will probably eat a half an hour before you’ll notice.

Chrome Experiments

For me, the 1,000 is a cool looking thingy, with useful feature of browsing through random projects.  The most interesting is the ISS Photo Viewer.