[wp-hackers] WordPress plugin inspections

[Harry Metcalfe]

On 19/02/2014 22:15, Peter van der Does wrote:
> snip snip
>
> Does the end user really care how the code is written?
> The grade depends on the expertise of the testers. What makes them
> qualified to give this grade? Do they have a PHP certification, what's
> their background?
>
The really key part of this criterion is:
> The lack of good style must materially reduce the tester's ability to
> understand what the code is doing, thereby indicating that the lack of
> good style has reduced code readability and maintainability.
This isn't about aesthetics - code that is written in such a way that it 
is very difficult to follow is also harder to maintain. It's more likely 
to contain bugs, some of which may be vulnerabilities. And it's much 
easier to make mistakes when editing it after you haven't looked at it 
for a while. It's also evidence that the developer may be inexperienced. 
These are all important factors. That said, I can't imagine that a 
plugin would fail an inspection on this criterion alone.

The inspections are carried out by experienced developers. I can 
appreciate that that might not be clear at the moment. I'm not sure how 
we'd go about reassuring people on that front, though: what would you 
consider to be good evidence that we're knowledgeable?

Harry