Please Help : Developers' Guide Update

[MattyT]

The developers' guide is getting somewhat outdated now.  It quite
incomplete, and even incorrect in places now.  I've caught up somewhat
so I'll be taking a look at updating it, before I look at getting my
other Bugzilla commitments under control.

Can everyone please look through it and let me know what needs to be
changed.  I know Gerv was complaining about this and I probably haven't
fixed his concerns, but besides this there have been few complaints -
this makes me somewhat nervous - it is there to be read.

Also, I've been trawling through about 10k messages of bugmail,
developers and so on and have made a list of issues I'm looking at maybe
including.  Please comment on them:

Win32 Programming - What needs to be avoided?  What is pipe open
syntax?  Path issues?  Non-existent binaries?  Examples?
There seem to have been extra filters added.  What are they, how do they
work?  Examples?  Security implications?
What needs to be done to not break mod_perl?
What's the new review procedure that arose out of the new flags system?
Do we have a CSS style policy yet?
Some high level documentation about the new modules, especially how the
new DB stuff replaces the old stuff.
Module conventions?  Module naming?  File naming?  Paths?
Does the use of OO in the new modules warrant any style conventions
being added?
Are we using exceptions yet?
Are we using placeholders yet?  If so, any restrictions?  If not, why
not?
Is $vars still in use?  Any changes?
More comments on performance?  What to avoid?  use diagnostics ->
warnings?  What perf testing tools and techniques are available?
What's the latest deal on bad URL parameters - code or user error?
What's the latest policy on multi-line SQL formatting?
What's the latest policy on prototypes?  When should they be used?  If
they shouldn't, why not?
Can we use transactions yet?
What's the latest deal with template versioning?
Anything to add about PRE and POST chomp?
When should INTERFACE comments be used?  Any style?
Brief description about the mailing lists ... etiquette?
How has the testing suite been expanded?
Are we using any email templates yet?  If not, have we decided on any
stylistic issues, or is there anything important to add?

-- 
         Matthew Tuck: Software Developer & All-Round Nice Guy        
 My Short Autobiography: 1985 Grade Bin Monitor 1990 Class Clown Award
1992 Awarded Most Likely To Spontaneously Combust 1996 Crowned Galactic
         Emperor 1998 Released From Smith Psychiatric Hospital