Functions vs Includes (for speed)

[MrCat]

My programming technique has tended to be short pieces of code as separate files, and then including them in a main page. I like this from a management point of view because it makes things easier to read than scrolling through long files.

 

I've been wondering if I should worry about any extra server load or time penalty in doing this?

 

Should I switch my style to longer files that contain multiple functions?

 

[lastkarrde]

No. Keep things the way you are doing them. The benefit gained from code maintainability/readability is far greater than that of a minuscule performance hit. If you do start serving millions of requests, a bytecode cache such as APC will improve performance.

 

[MrCat]

Thanks for that comment - much appreciated

[RopeADope]

Just a side note...you may already do this...but I inevitably wind up with huge files mostly because I group things by logical function.  What I've always done is use tags and just search for the tags.

 

Ex:

<?php

//Tags: post,print array, processing
function myFunction(){
   echo "Doing some processing...";
   print_r($_POST);
}

//10,000 lines later...

//Tags: mysql, query, last
function lastFunction(){
   echo "This is the last function, I swear...";
   mysql_query();
   mysql_close();
}

 

Its obviously a very manual way to do it but its definitely easy to just "Find" a tag than to find something by scanning.

[MrCat]

Good idea. I haven't used comments enough in the past.

 

Scripts always seem to end up more complicated than anticipated!