Recents Posts PHP

What is the snippet of php code that will allow me to show the recents wordpress posts on various parts of my blog without having to use a widget.

I found some code through google, but it wasn't dated so I'm not sure if it is current. In any case, it broke my wordpress theme, so I'm hoping someone might have some current code they can provide.

Thank you

 

<ul>
	     <?php get_archives('postbypost', 10); ?>
	     </ul>

PHP:

you can use this.

 

That's so much easier then the half page of functional code ( http://ianpurton.com/wordpress-recent-posts-plugin/ ) I just googled.

Is there a url that lists all the snippets of code such as the above that will work with the latest version of Wordpress.

 

Is there a way that I can use some type of code like this to place the morst recent posts on another page outside the Word Press script (but still on the same domain)?

I have WP in a subfolder and would like to have the most recent posts presented on the websites main home page

 

Why not just get an rss script (there are a bunch out there) and use that?

 

I thought sure there must be some sort of php code that would do it more simply, perhaps I was wrong