From: Benjohn Barnes <benjohn@...>
Date: 2006-04-06T06:40:34+09:00
Subject: Re: best practices


On 5 Apr 2006, at 21:39, Jean-Charles Carelli wrote:

> I'm working my way through the Pickaxe book and I have a question  
> regarding syntax and best practices.
>
> Example from page 64
>
>     # 1 Book example
>     songs.append(Song.new(title, name, mins.to_i * 60 + secs.to_i))
>
>
>    # 2 Alternate version.
>     duration = mins.to_i * 60 + secs.to_i
>     songs.append(Song.new(title, name, duration))
>
>
> Version 1 is very concise but harder to read. Ruby is very  
> intuitive but I find the second example easier to read.  What is  
> everyone else doing?

:) I choose the third way. I find the first approach too long, and I  
dislike unnecessary intermediate values of the second.

My approach is to factor out the computation of duration in to a  
separate method:
	def duration; mins.to_s * 60 + secs.to_i; end

Allowing me to write the call as:
	songs.append(Song.new(title, name, duration))

I find this helps to make code highly self documenting in many cases.

Cheers,
	Benjohn