On the SitePoint PHP blog today, Troels Knak-Nielsen has written up an article that talks about dependencies in your applications - those little interconnections your code relies on to do more with less.

In lack of better words, I'll call this compositional programming style. It's a style which is usually more prevalent with experienced programmers. [...] There is, however, a dark side to composition - dependencies.

He starts with a definition to bring everyone up to a level field then moves on to how their used (through a "global symbol" or directly passed in) and how they can "leak" if you're not careful.
To help protect you and your code from any kind of damage down the line, Troels suggests making a container to keep objects where they need to be. He even includes an example with namespace support to make things even easier down the road.


SitePoint PHP Blog: Dealing with Dependencies - Read More...