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0 pointscriddell9y ago0 comments

> you can understand what it does simply from the method name

That can be tough sometimes. How do you handle the case where you've created a function just to package some block of code that would otherwise be repeated 40 times? You end up with function names like

    add_to_list_when_cromulent()

or even worse

    rebuild_stats_helper()

Or you have the situation where every time you do action A, it usually needs to be followed with action B. Because you want functions to do one thing only you have two functions action_A() and action_B(). But since you are always going to do them in pairs, you end up with a group action_A_and_B() that just calls the two functions sequentially.

I think I've settled on helper functions that are static or in anonymous namespaces (I work in C++) whenever possible.

0 comments

tigershark9y ago

The first case is a self-explicative one liner, it doesn't need an external function.

    var evenNumbers = Enumerable.Range(0, 40).Where(i => i%2 == 0).Select(i => i);

Private methods must group non-elementary steps. The second case is a perfect example that explains why it is so much better to use a private method because now you have a method that groups both sub-methods and you don't need to call always two different methods in a bunch of places. In this way you decreased code duplication increasing clarity.

    private void ProcessLogs()
    {
        var events = _logProvider.Read();
        events.Where(e => e.IsError).ForEach(SendErrorAlert);
        events.Where(e => e.IsWarning).ForEach(SendWarningAlert);
    }

And the method name seems quite self-explanatory to me.

If you need to separate one method in paragraphs, and add comments that explain what each paragraph does then that code is SCREAMING for a refactoring, deleting all the useless comments and extracting that mess in properly structured Classes/Methods.

coredog649y ago

I see this all the time in our PRs:

   UtilHelper.processItems(List<object> items) : List<object>

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