Clear is better than clever [pdf]

Post by Technetium_Hat » Wed, May 08, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #244

josephg wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite solution to this problem is how rust does it. In rust every block can evaluate to an expression, so if/else is the ternary operator. let x = if cond1 { expr1 } else if cond2 && cond3 { expr2 } else { expr3 }; It’s more verbose this way (‘?’ Vs ‘else if’) but there’s no question of readability because it’s just if/else. You can format it however you like, and add statements into the blocks later if you ne…

Very lispy :-) Some would say top-level blocks returning the last value in the block is an anti-pattern, because functions which aren't meant to return a value end up leaking the value of the last thing called in the function, which might be another function, which called another function. Or it might be in various branches of an 'if', which aren't being examined for being an acceptable return value. Perl does this,…

Post by Technetium_Hat » Wed, May 08, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #261

naasking wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You see the problem though, I need to try it and practice it to see how simple and clear it is. You need to practice it to overcome your skepticism resulting from your ingrained habits that prejudice you against it, not because it's inherently unreadable. It literally takes 5 seconds to understand the idiom: conditions/guards on the left, value on the right. It's essentially a truth table. > Why do I want that? To…

>It literally takes 5 seconds to understand the idiom I understand how ternary operators work. It's still hard to read if you inline multiple ternary operators the way OP suggested is easy. It adds cognitive complexity, and hides bugs because your brain will fill the details on what it assumes it does, versus the subtleties of what it actually does. In fact, it is obviously so confusing that to make it work someone s…

Post by b2gills » Tue, May 14, 2019, 12:59 AM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #244

josephg wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite solution to this problem is how rust does it. In rust every block can evaluate to an expression, so if/else is the ternary operator. let x = if cond1 { expr1 } else if cond2 && cond3 { expr2 } else { expr3 }; It’s more verbose this way (‘?’ Vs ‘else if’) but there’s no question of readability because it’s just if/else. You can format it however you like, and add statements into the blocks later if you ne…

Very lispy :-) Some would say top-level blocks returning the last value in the block is an anti-pattern, because functions which aren't meant to return a value end up leaking the value of the last thing called in the function, which might be another function, which called another function. Or it might be in various branches of an 'if', which aren't being examined for being an acceptable return value. Perl does this,…

    sub foo ( $_ --> Nil ) {…}