From: David Vallner <david@...>
Date: 2006-12-06T08:10:59+09:00
Subject: Re: "more than enough rope"

--------------enig0882218D20CFBC7770F54816
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Giles Bowkett wrote:
> Obviously this is a judgement call -- but does anyone know good
> resources for those questions like, when do I use metaprogramming,
> when do I just use more normal techniques?
>=20

My personal take to the when is: Depends, sparingly if in doubt.

If you're not engaging in external code-clobbering, knock yourself out.
If you can keep your own private language to your code, then if you feel
that your code is indeed cleaner with metaprogramming, just go ahead and
use it. The worst thing that can happen is that you'll shoot yourself in
the foot, get a subtle bug, fix it, and learn how to avoid doing it
again - a gift that keeps on giving! *ducks*

However, watch it in interfaces to external code. Code to be consumed by
third parties, or with high probability maintained by third parties
should if nothing else keep a well-defined interface that doesn't change
on a whim except by explicit library client request with methods to do
precisely that. (This doesn't apply to libraries that are mainly
metaprogramming aids like traits et al.) For code with others
maintaining it, writing more exhaustive documentation is a good
self-test. If you can trace back your own code like you do with the
harder snippets on the mailing list in your head and unravel the
workings into words up to the "Ah-hah!" point, and then put a digest of
your mind's core dump into docs, you should be set - this would imply
there's actual sense behind the meta code structure instead of just
threading hacks together in something that works out yet is just a shiny
notation for something trivial.

David Vallner


--------------enig0882218D20CFBC7770F54816
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc"
Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc"

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFFdfyAy6MhrS8astoRAhHNAJ94RuN9iErjPt+1p2lsvPWkawc+PACfRyWa
ekXEvXKZoYzG9mOLc6mXPZE=
=63tH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--------------enig0882218D20CFBC7770F54816--