Before I actually get to the list, I want to give you a quick tip on how to keep your blog updated forever without having to manually change the footer date.  You can use this tip on any website that supports php 4 and 5.  Let’s say that your blog’s footer looked something like this:

Copyright © 2009 TutorialWow.com - All Rights Reserved

To make it never have to be updated, just change it to this:

Copyright © <?php echo date("Y"); ?> TutorialWow.com - All Rights Reserved

As you can see, all I did was replace “2009″ with “< ?php echo date(“Y”); ?>”.  This simply outputs the current year number, and makes for a care-free footer!

Without further nonsense, here are 34 websites that are still in 2008 (or even 2007 for some) – in no particular order.

Google

BuySellAds

You the Designer

WebUrbanist

Speckyboy

Six Revisions

GoMediaZine

Design Bump

Designflavr

David Airey

CreativeSync

Color Overload

CrazyLeaf

FBrushes

Think Design

Digital Artist Toolbox

Hongkiat

CSS Count

Knowtebook

BrushKing

DesignNerd

Vectips

BittBox

Veerle’s Blog

Colorburned

Twitter

Noupe

ImJustCreative

Just Creative Design

My Ink Blog

Fuel Your Creativity

9rules

Function

Web Designer Wall

Enough of my rantings – go update your blog footer!

1. Indenting Two Spaces

One of the most obvious ways to make your code more readable is to indent all of your lines to the correct width. I usually use two spaces for my tabs, an option you can specify in most text editors.

2. Code Bracket Placement

As I said before, it’s always nice to keep your code style the same throughout all of your code. One of the things I am a little “finicky” about is the placement of the code brackets that surround my code blocks (if statements, while loops, etc.).

I place my beginning bracket one space after the ending parenthesis of the code block header.  Take a look at this image to see what I mean:

3. Comment, Comment, Comment

Alright, I admit it, I’m a comment freak.  I go wild with comments all over the place, and I have descriptions of almost every line of code in my files.  I find that if I stick to one format for all of my comments, it makes the overall readability a whole lot better.

When I comment whole sections of code, using the comment as a sort of “header”, I put my header text inside a multi-line comment, and place this right before the beginning of the section of code that I’m describing.

When describing just a single line, I use a single-line comment, and tab it one or two tabs from the line I’m describing – like this:

4. Parenthesis and Brace Padding

To make my code more readable, I add spaces inside all of my parentheses and square braces as a kind of “padding” for them.  This can look strange at first, but if you get used to it, you’ll see how much more readable it can make things.

Conclusion

I hope that everyone who reads this post gets something out of it, and applies it to their own coding.  Now don’t misunderstand me – this is not the only way to format your code – there are so many different ways you can do this, and the important thing is that you find the style that you’re comfortable with and stick with it.

Until next time, happy coding!