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Don't be clever

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Re: Don't be clever

#211

Post by isaacremuant »

wallmountedtv wrote: post #34
jbandela1 wrote: post #15

> Yes, I had failed to see the proper solution: a class generator — so that I didn't have to manually copy code again No, please don't. This is jumping from the frying pan into the fire. If you think abstract base classes can be clever and hard to understand, code generators can be even more so. In addition, because code generators are a one way conversion, and the generated code evolves independently and the code ge…

As a blog post with the title "Don't be clever" ending up with the author's answer being an even clever-er solution, than talking about the hidden fight against complexity in software, was an odd ending note.

I don't know if it's because I'm reading HN more often these days instead of spacing it out but there's definitely a sizeable quantity of "" followed by "so short it seems from twitter" article which really provides little insight or is absolutely misguided.

I guess the debate is instructional in itself and it's why the comments+article combo is the real power of HN.

Re: Don't be clever

#212

Post by Timon3 »

_fat_santa wrote: post #89
SanderNL wrote: post #13

I have swung both ways and I think I now settle somewhere near "boring is good" and "repetition is harmless (compared to the astronomic costs of wrong abstraction)". Especially repetition seems to be hated with the might of a thousand suns and while I get it, because I myself hated it, I now can see the beauty of it. What is currently a superficial repetition - a bunch of endpoint handlers, some forms - will often tu…

I have what I call the "10 second rule". The rule is that an experienced programmer (ie. someone who has written the type of code your codebase is written in, whether Python, JS, etc) should be able to look at a code snippet, any code snippet in your code, and figure out what it does in about 10 seconds. There are obviously exceptions to this where complexity can't be avoided but overall I found the tradeoff is worth…

I like your "10 second rule"! I have a slightly modified version, the "look, a fly" rule. If I can lose focus for a bit and return to the function without being confused, it's probably good!

Re: Don't be clever

#213

Post by gorlilla »

oefnak wrote: post #190
beachy wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be perhaps even more anal, after construction scaffolding is taken down, stored, transported to a new project and then used again.

And it's made of steel, not bits.

If there are no bits then what're all the pieces linked to?

Re: Don't be clever

#214

Post by amanvir_ »

gnat wrote: post #174

Larry Wall said something like "if you have a complex problem, the complexity will come up somewhere -- either you have a complex language and a simple program, or a simple language and a complex problem. The complexity can't be wished away." Being Larry, he said it far better but I can't find the exact quote. All programming is making models: representing a chaotic and changing analog world in bits, data structures,…

The “waterbed theory” is probably what you’re looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbed_theory

Re: Don't be clever

#215

Post by gnat »

amanvir_ wrote: post #214
gnat wrote: post #174

Larry Wall said something like "if you have a complex problem, the complexity will come up somewhere -- either you have a complex language and a simple program, or a simple language and a complex problem. The complexity can't be wished away." Being Larry, he said it far better but I can't find the exact quote. All programming is making models: representing a chaotic and changing analog world in bits, data structures,…

The “waterbed theory” is probably what you’re looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterbed_theory

That's the one, thanks. I knew he said it better :-)

Re: Don't be clever

#216

Post by [deleted] »

hgsgm wrote: post #114
jader201 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also seen "scaffolding" used to generate code that shouldn't be manually modified. E.g.: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/managing-schemas/s...

That's someone who doesn't know what words mean. When a building is built, the scaffolding isn't an immutable part of the final product.

[deleted]

Re: Don't be clever

#217

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #43

The problem OP describes (multiple classes like that other class, but with a twist each) is a textbook use case for inheritance, but after decades of prominent programmers indoctrinating „inheritance bad”, I can see why he would not consider it at all.

Thanks for all the downvotes, they prove my point brilliantly.

Re: Don't be clever

#218

Post by IggleSniggle »

wizofaus wrote: post #163
horsawlarway wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm taking about scenarios where the business logic needs to be exactly the same in both cases, there just happens to multiple ways to reach that point. I've seen lots of these cases turn out to be "the business logic happens to be exactly the same in both cases". It might have been a single feature at one point where it should have been identical, but two flows going there in two different ways means it's serving…

But the divergence is more often than not unintended and causes inconsistent/ unexpected behaviour when a change is made in one copy and not the other, which is why it ends up using up more time in the end. And how is extracting a few lines of code into a function and calling that more complexity than having two identical copies of it?

When the divergence comes from subtle differences in requirements, then those subtle differences in requirements now need to baked into your single function (or, really, broken out from the function; but they have to be recognized as different to begin with). Now, the next time you need to address a new feature along one pathway, you must also be certain that you are not subtly breaking some completely unrelated feature requirement.

Re: Don't be clever

#219

Post by dajonker »

At a previous job we used ActiveAdmin on top of Rails, which is a sort of CRUDController as described in the article. Wonderful productivity when you are just starting out, but it got so bloated that it took over a minute to hot reload code. You basically had to kill the server and restart it when changing anything. Nobody dared doing anything about it and nobody had any idea how to fix the issues. But there were scripts to make it easier to kill and restart the development server...

So at some point I wrote a script that read the ActiveAdmin parts and used a library to convert it into its abstract syntax tree. Now I could manipulate the tree and shape it into regular Rails controllers and plain old HTML views. That took care of about 90% of the work. The remaining 10% was of course the weird exceptions. Finishing it took a lot of testing, a ballsy deploy to production, and a further hour of frantic bug fixing, but then it was done. No more productivity destroying hassling with the smart admin framework. I think I would have quit my job way earlier if I wasn't able to fix that, and had to live with it instead.

Re: Don't be clever

#220

Post by deterministic »

jbandela1 wrote: post #15

> Yes, I had failed to see the proper solution: a class generator — so that I didn't have to manually copy code again No, please don't. This is jumping from the frying pan into the fire. If you think abstract base classes can be clever and hard to understand, code generators can be even more so. In addition, because code generators are a one way conversion, and the generated code evolves independently and the code ge…

I use code generators all the time and it has saved me a huge amount of work. I routinely generate 80% of the code needed to implement typical business applications.

Having said that, code generators are not all the same. Some are awesome, others are downright awful. There is an art to writing good code generators. Not surprising really. The same can be said for most other software.

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