Corey's Ramblings

Hey meme!

You look tired in that one! ;)

2009-03-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hey meme!

You look tired in that one! ;)

Corey, you look sad today. What's up?

2009-03-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

Corey, you look sad today. What's up?

Corey,
I think the last snippet is very clear, ...

2009-01-29T15:25:00.000-08:00

Corey,
I think the last snippet is very clear, but I'm not convinced it's an improvement (admittedly per my definition of clarity) over the first snippet, which is already very clear.

One way to get better code clarity is with simple descriptive methods, like what you've got within the utility class. An entire codebase can also have a sense of clarity to it. I wonder if you've sacrificed the clarity of the codebase as a whole for a too small improvement to the clarity of the first snippet.

@Mark

I'd be very interested what you mean ...

2009-01-29T13:53:00.000-08:00

@Mark

I'd be very interested what you mean when you say that the last snippet isn't "clear." I'm finding that different people have different meanings for their usage.

For me, something like
NewThing().WithAnOffsetDueDateInDays(5)
is very clear: it is creating a new thing and setting the due date to an offset. Perhaps a name change, though, would make it clearer.
NewThings().WithADueDateOffsetInDays(5)
Hmm.... I think I like that better. It makes it even more clear that it is setting the DueDate that way.
Perhaps even
.WithADueDateOffsetFromTodayInDays(5)
Now that I think about it, I think I like that even better.

@Mark

I'm finding, as I talk to more and mo...

2009-01-29T13:48:00.000-08:00

@Mark

I'm finding, as I talk to more and more people, that "clear" is often a matter of time and experience with new things (good example is foreach loops vs iterator methods). I would much prefer to continue the implementation with the technique that @fallenrogue outlines in his comment, but I'm a bit lazy on that respect.

I don't tend to judge things based on the number of lines of code vs the number of classes. Instead, I strive to eliminate duplication. Often times, this leads to more classes in order to hold the extraction.

I'm not feeling it.
You're first snippet is not...

2009-01-29T13:41:00.000-08:00

I'm not feeling it.
You're first snippet is not "fluent" but it is clear, nonetheless.

While your last snippet is "fluent", it isn't any more clear _and_ you've introduced a ThingsTestingUtilities class that holds two methods to do what you originally did in one line.

Harman's right, you can do something like
+++++...

2009-01-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

Harman's right, you can do something like
+++++++++
public static class ThingTestingUtilities {
public static DateTime days(this int input) {
return DateTime.Now.AddDays(input);
}
}
+++++++++

Which will give you the sugar you want. Otherwise, C#'s fake "composition" is extension methods. my only hold up is that it's halfway to what you'd REALLY want to write and maintain. It's a good technique that I'm using more and more to eliminate inheritance hierarchies.

Since inheritance is flawed in C# (I would argue completely fucking brokenzorz) extension methods, for composition, is the best that you're going to get in C#. Looks good man. Now come to Dayton and we'll go nutz with this shit.

Corey's Ramblings

Hey meme!You look tired in that one! ;)

Corey, you look sad today. What's up?

Corey,I think the last snippet is very clear, ...

@MarkI'd be very interested what you mean ...

@MarkI'm finding, as I talk to more and mo...

I'm not feeling it.You're first snippet is not...

Harman's right, you can do something like+++++...

Hey meme!

You look tired in that one! ;)

Corey,
I think the last snippet is very clear, ...

@Mark

I'd be very interested what you mean ...

@Mark

I'm finding, as I talk to more and mo...

I'm not feeling it.
You're first snippet is not...

Harman's right, you can do something like
+++++...