itrebal

1) What is the point of saving the cookie data? to verify it isn't hacked/changed from what you sent, in an effort to hack the account? If that is the point, I'd just store md5serialize($cookiedata)), after all - that is what MD5 is for. 2) Instead of storing the date/time they joined save a timestamp - much easier to work with. 3) postcount should be gotten by using count() in the posts table, not an integer stored near the user, IMO.

I have a very conflicting view with 448191, the method by which I've learned all the languages I know have been copy and pasting the code examples on other websites and using them to create my own. I would figure out how they worked to the best of my ability and change them to work. I created quite a complex website using simple copy-paste. I think you just need to judge for yourself how you learn best, and apply that method. One way doesn't work well for everybody.

If you feel you won't be able to come back and figure out what it means in a month [ie: its purpose is not obvious] then comment it. A recommended method is using the methods for phpDocumentor.

I haven't spent much time with the Zend Framework, but in the time I did spend with it I didn't like it a whole lot. Though, the methods and design they employed did please me quite a lot, and the registry is what I meant with #1 and #4. [I just noticed the list was a bit out of order...] One solution for example would be to initiate the BB_Config_XML to tell the class what to do, and then pass it to the broker, and that would prevent it from re-initializing it. Not exactly the most elegant, though it would work.

Heh, long time since I've shown my face here.. In my experience with writing applications using plugins and modules, the best way takes a couple things: 1) Create a plugins base class to organize/manage them 2) Abstract everything you can to give the plugins easy access to everything 4) Keep your abstracted classes in a single, master class, a registry if you will: $masterclass->someClass; 3) Hooks. Have application hooks placed in your code. This way you can (for example) in your script (Using tip from #4): $masterclass->hooks->add('post_submition'); put that where posts are submitted, for example. Then in the plugin do.. $masterclass->hooks->catch('post_submition', 'function'); so your function is called when that hook is called/created.