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How A Pull Request Rocked My World

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Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#81

Post by potatolicious »

rosser wrote: post #17
lincolnq wrote: post #4

I don't love this refactor. I especially don't like how it generates names from other names -- e.g., given 'switch'/'submit', appends '_row', and then converts it to CamelCase so you get 'SwitchRow'/'SubmitRow', then instantiates the class named that. Here's why: When I am maintaining somebody else's code, even if I guess that this is going on, I rarely trust these kinds of name-generation tricks. When I need to chan…

...I rarely trust these kinds of name-generation tricks. So you're probably not a big fan of Rails, then?

I'm actually not a huge fan of implicit name-generation tricks, but I'm also not entirely opposed to them.

The trick here I think is consistency - is name-generated type dispatch the standard across the entirety of the codebase? If it is, go wild. If it's not then I'd be much more wary of it.

Consistency and building correct expectations for future maintainers is pretty important. Doing a smart trick in one place but failing to do it in other places where it makes sense IMO tends to create a bigger mess than doing it the dumb-but-safe way everywhere.

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#82

Post by svachalek »

chris_wot wrote: post #37
svachalek wrote: post #29

In terms of Gang of Four patterns, I believe this would be Strategy + Factory Method. The book is a little antiquated (1994) but it or a better successor should be required reading for any programmer.

I don't believe that its terribly antiquated. Pretty much everything bases itself off of this book. Edit: drafted iPad - fixed spelling. Trilby - does anyone even use that word anymore?!?

It has a couple of patterns that have been more or less rejected by modern OO leaders:

1. "Singleton" (enough said) 2. "Template method" is more or less "inheritance over delegation"

There's also a couple like Flyweight that are of such narrow applicability that they hardly merit placement on the short list with classics like Composites and Factories, and a few new items like Dependency Injection are surely worth a mention whether you want to argue for or against it.

Finally it's got an approach to presenting and explaining the patterns that clearly predates the web and modern attention spans. All that said, it's still a classic, but depending on the preferred language and technical proficiency of the reader it wouldn't always be my recommended introduction to design patterns.

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#83

Post by svachalek »

martinced wrote: post #66
chris_wot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that its terribly antiquated. Pretty much everything bases itself off of this book. Edit: drafted iPad - fixed spelling. Trilby - does anyone even use that word anymore?!?

"I don't believe that it's the trilby antiquated. Pretty much everything bases itself off of this book." Hardly. The GoF book is sweet if in this day and age you're still doing Java/C# but if you're programming in a language like, say, Clojure you can throw about 75% of the GoF book into the trash. pg said to use a Lisp to beat the average and that's what I'm doing. I'm certainly not accepting the status-quo and cons…

I don't think Clojure is really object-oriented, and therefore wouldn't recommend the use of object-oriented design patterns at all. But as the dominant paradigm of our age, I think it's worth understanding OOP even if the final decision is to reject it.

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#84

Post by potatolicious »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #62

I tried to picture the solution before scrolling down past the initial block with the nested ifs. It got me thinking about "switch()", as seen in C, C++, and elsewhere. That in turn got me thinking about using an enum to pick up on whatever it is he's trying to do here, and jump to the right place accordingly. Generically, I had something like this in my head: switch (row_type) { case submittable: ...; break; case ch…

Indeed, the original code was, IMO, incorrect.

It looks like the purpose is a pretty common one in iOS - you have a table view populated by many rows, each of which can be a different class that renders and behaves differently. It's a common need in iOS apps.

What he really needed was an enum, not flags. The choice of class is mutually exclusive and flags are horrible for tracking this, and are great for hiding bugs - one erroneous flag flip and suddenly your code is walking down a completely different path that's non-obvious on first debug. Using a bunch of bools to approximate state is error-prone and IMO just bad architecture.

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#85

Post by redshirtrob »

dakimov wrote: post #64
AlexeyBrin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for Good programming is not an objective concept.

== Programming sucks nowadays. There is not even a consensus on what is good in programming! Take a look at other professional cultures: people work extremely hard to develop the skills that everybody else in their profession have. What does a software developer do? Whatever they like on their own, there is no professional culture whatsoever: "Don't give a crap about the humankind's experience, I'll invent everything…

> There is almost nothing to rely on.

You could rely on your experience.

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#86

Post by shocks »

jtchang wrote: post #9

Refactors like this are super cool and often needed but I sometimes have to think why we don't store the easier to read code as well. I know we have git and we can always do a diff to see what changed. What I am talking about is a more holistic view. Being able to search a code base for SwitchRow and then somehow the code comes up where it was refactored into this dynamic programming style. Git can do this but only i…

Because if you understand the new code you don't need the "easier to read" code.

Constraining yourself to only writing code a beginner can understand is stupid. Maintaining good code and "easier to read for a beginner" code in tandem is a waste of man hours.

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#88

Post by ams6110 »

pjungwir wrote: post #52
Xcelerate wrote: post #38

Reading the comments in this thread is very interesting to me, because each programmer seems certain of the superiority of his own programming style. We have some comments that disparage the change, saying that it obfuscates the code and makes it more difficult to understand. We have others saying that this change is a basic technique and it's "shocking" that the author wrote a book without this simple knowledge. Wha…

Early in my career, a project manager said to me, "I've never heard one programmer praise another programmer's code. They always criticize!" I think that reinforced for me both that someone's approach might be good even if it isn't my own, and also that it's important to say when something is done well. Of course, there's also just a lot of bad code out there.... :-)

A lot of programmers are insecure. They were the nerds in school, not popular, not good at sports, etc. Programming is the one thing they can do where they feel in control, and confident. So they naturally tend to be defensive about it.

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#89

Post by nikster »

AlexeyBrin wrote: post #43
Xcelerate wrote: post #38

Reading the comments in this thread is very interesting to me, because each programmer seems certain of the superiority of his own programming style. We have some comments that disparage the change, saying that it obfuscates the code and makes it more difficult to understand. We have others saying that this change is a basic technique and it's "shocking" that the author wrote a book without this simple knowledge. Wha…

+1 for Good programming is not an objective concept.

I dont agree with that.

There is a confusion about programming though, an idea that it is a purely technical discipline, like laying bricks when in reality its a design discipline, like designing a building.

If you wanted to build a house you wouldnt just hire a couple of bricklayers and tell them "do it". Yet thats what happens in programming...

Re: How A Pull Request Rocked My World

#90

Post by [deleted] »

mylittlepony wrote: post #24
revelation wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a very critical point that you just have to understand, to "get". Many people know and learn about object oriented design, but when tasked to actually write a program based on these principles they will often revert to code where they make distinctions based on the type of what they have been handed. TLDR: dynamic_cast is bad design

I guess he's gonna come back with another article when he realizes composition > inheritance.

[deleted]
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