From: Lyndon Samson <lyndon.samson@...>
Date: 2005-11-07T20:33:08+09:00
Subject: Re: programming best practices

On 11/7/05, Robert Klemme <bob.news@gmx.net> wrote:
> swille wrote:
> >> But the way you've written it, rc is always false.  Did you mean true
> >> in the first line? :-)
> >>
> >> Also, it seems a little bit like you've got two error-reporting
> >> systems going on.  Maybe you could combine them:
> >>
> >>    def login
> >>      perform action
> >>    end
> >>
> >>    begin
> >>      login
> >>    rescue
> >>      ...
> >>    end
> >>
> >> etc.
> >>
> >
> > Ah, yes, that was a typo.  My example possibly wasn't the greatest...
> > I couldn't think of exactly when I had used it last in Ruby.  It's
> > actually something I've been using in Java quite a bit because I've
> > been writing interfaces into JavaScript and there's no way (in
> > JavaScript) to handle the exceptions from Java, so I use a boolean
> > return value.  I decided at some point that I really like the
> > aesthetics of it.  After a colleague questioned that behavior in
> > another context though, I thought twice about whether it was a good
> > idea.  Basically, I suggested he use a boolean return value to a
> > method and he said something to the effect that it would be more
> > proper to return int-based return codes because "some_method true?"
> > didn't sound right.  I wondered if maybe I was going to regret not
> > going to college :O)
>
> <soapbox>
> IMHO using int's as return values is as bad as using boolean return values
> in a language that has exceptions.  Exceptions are a far more elegant way
> of handling errors and also often code will be shorter and cleaner.  One
> of the reasons for this is that you can throw an exception somewhere deep
> down in an application or lib and catch it several layers above - at the

Well if you were really against Exceptions you could allways use
continuations to do this more elegantly than nested returns.


> level where it makes most sense.  If you want to do that with boolean /
> int return values you'll have checking and returning code in all
> intermediate layers - this is bloated, ugly and unflexible.
> </soapbox>
>
> Kind regards
>
>     robert
>
>
>


--
Into RFID? www.rfidnewsupdate.com Simple, fast, news.