Quality terms
Technical Debt
PHP 5.0+
The accumulated cost of shortcuts, suboptimal decisions, and deferred refactoring — 'debt' that accrues interest over time as it slows development.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Tell Don't Ask Principle
PHP 5.0+
Tell objects what to do rather than asking for their state and deciding externally — keep behaviour with the data it operates on.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Template Method Pattern
Defines the skeleton of an algorithm in a base class, deferring specific steps to subclasses without changing the algorithm's structure.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Temporary Field
A class field that is only set and used in certain circumstances — most of the time it is empty or null, confusing readers.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Type Safety in PHP (strict_types & Static Analysis)
PHP 7.4+
Combining strict_types=1, typed properties, return types, union types, and PHPStan/Psalm to catch type errors at analysis time rather than runtime.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Types of Technical Debt
Technical debt is not uniform — deliberate vs inadvertent, reckless vs prudent quadrants define the nature of debt and the appropriate response to each type.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Value Object
PHP 8.1+
4
A small immutable object defined by its value rather than its identity — two Value Objects with the same data are equal.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Cognitive Complexity
4
A readability-focused complexity metric that penalises nesting more heavily than cyclomatic complexity.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Dependency Injection
PHP 5.0+ Passing dependencies into a class rather than creating them inside — makes classes testable and loosely coupled.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Immutability
PHP 8.1+
1
Objects whose state cannot change after construction — immutable objects are inherently thread-safe, predictable, and easy to reason about.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
SOLID Principles (Overview)
PHP 5.0+
Five object-oriented design principles — SRP, OCP, LSP, ISP, DIP — that together guide towards maintainable, extensible code.
3mo ago
quality intermediate