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0 pointsenneff10y ago0 comments

Or, y'know, just copy and paste the trivial code. It should take all of 30 seconds.

Not saying that it's pretty, but it's quick and easy.

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7 comments · 5 top-level

junke10y ago· 2 in thread

And that's exactly why I am not convinced that Go is as maintainable as often claimed. 30 seconds for you, but how many hours for the poor souls who will come after you and ask: should I change this copy too or is it a separate case?

It reminds me of this: http://typicalprogrammer.com/abject-oriented/

enneffOP10y ago

This thread is about sort interface implementations. Their general form will never change, and the only specifics unique to any given copy are those specific to their type. It is obvious to any Go programmer what can and cannot be changed in this situation.

junke10y ago

The thread was more about mattlondon's problem with sorting according to the same key in different structs. I used of modified version of this example[0] to illustrate what I think is his problem[1]: you can sort circles and planet by radius, and probably many other things in the original case, but you are required to copy-paste the definitions.

I can understand that instantiating templates by hand is not so bad. But once it is written, maintaining the code is not so obvious for someone not acquainted with it.

Did I introduce a bug or not in the code? Not easy to tell without context.

[0] http://stackoverflow.com/a/28999886/124319

[1] https://play.golang.org/p/Dq0AJjkhhr

2 more replies

iopq10y ago

commit c270f19d456e862aeb559098fa32d36fbc5329a0 Date: Wed Apr 13 04:57:46 2016 -0700

    fixing level selection again

commit dae018e4f76db0e9da810b4560d6c8e1c7029048 Date: Mon Apr 11 07:06:47 2016 -0700

    fixing level selection for hint case

commit a754bcd0d09ab1e357ae28c8f06baf65d879878f Date: Sat Apr 9 02:33:14 2016 -0700

    forgot to fix the level selection in the move case

parenthephobia10y ago

What if I'd done that 20 times around my code-base and then later I discover there's an off-by-one error in the original code that's maybe been inherited into all 20 copies?

If I could actually reuse code properly I'd only have to fix it once.

Without effective code reuse, I have to hunt down the copies, each of which may have slight modifications to make them better fit their use case (and might be hard to grep for as a result), figure out whether or not the bug exists in that copy (and whether it can actually be triggered), and fix it there.

The description of inheritance in http://typicalprogrammer.com/abject-oriented/ seems relevant here. (Edit: Derp, junke got there way before me!)

takeda10y ago

Then one day you find a bug in your code and now will have to find all copies of it and to make things worse someone else modified some of the copies so now not all of them are identical.

golergka10y ago

Maintenance.

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