Quality terms
Because working code and good code are not the same thing
Code that works today but cannot be understood, tested, or modified tomorrow is a liability, not an asset. Code quality covers metrics, static analysis, design principles like SOLID and DRY, refactoring techniques, and the habits that separate codebases teams love from ones they dread maintaining. Good quality is not about perfection — it is about making the next change easier than the last.
Code Readability Metrics
Readability can be measured — cyclomatic complexity, cognitive complexity (SonarQube), lines per function, parameter count, and nesting depth are all quantifiable proxies for readability.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Chain of Responsibility Pattern PHP 5.0+ Passes a request along a chain of handlers, each deciding whether to process it or pass it to the next handler.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Code Ownership & CODEOWNERS CODEOWNERS defines which team members must review changes to specific files or directories — enforcing expertise-based review and preventing unreviewed changes to critical code.
2mo ago
quality beginner
Cohesion
The degree to which elements within a module belong together; high cohesion means a class does one thing and does it well.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Command Pattern PHP 5.0+
Encapsulates a request as an object, enabling queuing, logging, undo/redo, and decoupling of request sender from receiver.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Command Query Separation (CQS)
Methods should either return a value (query) or change state (command), but never both.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Comments as Code Smell
Excessive or explanatory comments often indicate that the code itself is too complex or poorly named to be self-explanatory.
2mo ago
quality beginner
Composite Pattern
Treats individual objects and compositions of objects uniformly through a shared interface, enabling tree-structured hierarchies.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Composition Over Inheritance
Favour assembling behaviour from injected collaborator objects rather than inheriting it from a parent class.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Coupling
The degree to which one module depends on another; high coupling makes changes expensive and testing difficult.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Cyclomatic Complexity
A count of linearly independent paths through a function — each if, for, while, case, and && adds 1.
2mo ago
quality intermediate
Code Smell
A surface indication in code that usually corresponds to a deeper design problem — not a bug, but a maintainability risk.
2mo ago
quality beginner
Cognitive Complexity
A readability-focused complexity metric that penalises nesting more heavily than cyclomatic complexity.
2mo ago
quality intermediate