*** CODING BEST PRACTICES ***

The following best practices make code easier to read, easier to maintain,
and easier to debug.  Consistent use of these guidelines means less guess
work for developers, which means happier, more productive developers.

* 	Adhere to "Don't Repeat Yourself" (DRY) principles of code design and
	organization. If you are copy-and-pasting code YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG.
	If you find a block of code that you want to use multiple times, make a
	function.  If you find views that are identical except for a single value,
	pull it out into a generic view that takes an option.

* 	Whitespace is free.  Don't be afraid to use it to separate blocks of code.
	Use a single space to separate function params and string concatenation.

* 	Use self-documenting variable names.  $group_guids is better than $array.

*   Use "positive" variable names. Prefer `$enable = true` to `$disable = false`.

* 	Functions returning an array should return an empty array instead of FALSE
	on no results.

* 	Functions not throwing an exception on error should return FALSE upon
	failure.

* 	Functions returning only boolean should be prefaced with is_ or has_ (eg,
	elgg_is_logged_in(), elgg_has_access_to_entity()).

* 	Ternary syntax is acceptable for single-line, non-embedded statements.

* 	Use comments effectively.  Good comments describe the "why."  Good code
	describes the "how."  Ex:
		Not a very useful comment:

		// increment $i only when the entity is marked as active.
		foreach($entities as $entity) {
			if ($entity->active == TRUE) {
				$i++;
			}
		}

		Useful comment:

		// find the next index for inserting a new active entity.
		foreach($entities as $entity) {
			if ($entity->active == TRUE) {
				$i++;
			}
		}

* 	Use commit messages effectively.  Be concise and meaningful. Ex:
		Not meaningful:
		Small fix to groups.

		Meaningful:
		Fixes #1234: Added missing ) that caused a WSOD on group profile page
		when logged out.

* 	Commit effectively: Err on the side of atomic commits.  One revision with
	many changes is scary.
