From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2007-10-16T22:07:29+09:00
Subject: Re: nil.to_i returning zero

On 10/16/07, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/15/07, Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@gmail.com> wrote:
...
> > which would allow sequences like:
> >
> >   a ||= 0
> >   a += 1
> >
> > To be just
> >   a += 1
> >
> >
> > As I said ALMOST ready to go out on a limb, since I haven't spent much
> > time pondering the consequences.
> Please let me help you with this then ;)
>
> The consequences would be that you code gets much more difficult to debug.

I don't  know that this is necessarily true.

I'm not coming up with an example of code which this makes harder to
debug, but that might just be a lack of imagination on my part.

> Now that is not necessarily a reason not to do it, Thomas just boldly
> said "bah that's what tests are for", this is a respectable POV, I
> however feel that not everybody in this discussion is aware of the
> fragility that may include into the code.
> Personally I would prefer not to pay that price, many are prepared to
> pay it, so they are probably not completely wrong ;).

What price? Writing tests?  Tests are an investment. Test driven
development is what enables writing agile quality code in dynamic
languages.  Some would argue that it's a superior replacement for
static typing, and I'd be one of those.


> Let us have some fun with OO now, again that is not an argument for or
> against, I just want to look at it from yet another angle:
> What would one esteem the responsibilities of NilClass ?

> I just finished KentBeck's Smalltalk Pattern Best Practices and I have
> therefore much
> difficulties to sacrifice "Readability" for "Elegance". But it would
> make programming
> more fun, sure ;).

Ah, but readability is language dependent.  To make an analogy,
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Voltaire, and Hemingway are all readable to
various degrees depending on the reader, and his familiarity with
different language and literature.

Kent's book is very strongly rooted in Smalltalk and in the
capabilities of the typical Smalltalk IDE (primarily VisualWorks and
VisualAge at the time the book was written).   A number of his
patterns deal with doing things which maximize the ability to read the
code using browser facilities.

Pattern's don't live in a vacuum,  the choice of patterns is affected
by environmental pressures, and the language is a major contributor to
these pressures.

I'm pretty sure that Kent would agree with this.  Kent's all about
carefully choosing patterns.

Here's another Kent Beckism, with no intended connection to anything
said on this thread.  Yesterday I watched a video of a recent panel
chaired by Martin Fowler on the infoq site.  Martin put together a
collection of senior ThoughtWorks consultants to discuss the
relationship of design to agile methods.  One gave an example of a
project which got off on the wrong track by making a simplifying
assumption which caused much grief when the app needed to be scaled to
large numbers of concurrent users.

it was pointed out that this was a counterexample to Kent's "Do the
simplest thing that could possibly work."  Martin pointed out that
simplicity often requires a deal of thought.  He quoted Kent who in a
similar situation was heard to say, "I didn't say the stupidest thing
that could possibly work!"

Cheers!
-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/