Solar classes adhere to the PEAR coding standards, with one minor deviation. In PEAR, only private elements have an underscore prefix; in Solar, both private and protected elements have an underscore prefix.

<?php
public    $public;
protected $_protected; // in PEAR, this would be $protected instead
private   $_private;

In every Solar class, we strive for simple, easy-to-test, and easy-to-explain solutions. We like fast execution, but prefer to err on the side of slower-but-simpler instead of faster-but-obtuse.

When obtuse or complex code is unavoidable, it is thoroughly commented and outlined with inline narrative comments as a teaching exercise. We know that some poor guy is going to have to figure out how the code works, so we take a little extra time and comment so that others can comprehend what's going on.

Currently, Solar uses the PEAR-style pseudo-namespaces that existed before PHP 5.3 (i.e., using a vendor prefix on each class). This does not prevent the use of namespaces in your own Solar-based code. Future versions of Solar might use PHP 5.3 formal namespaces.

Solar uses PHP Documentor documentation blocks for every class, property, and method. This makes it easy to auto-generate class documentation using the Solar make-docs command-line tool.

All inline documentation uses Solar wiki-style markup so that the generated class documentation is automatically linked and styled.