From: HarryO <harryo@...>
Date: 2002-01-14T07:48:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Small Methods - a ramble

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 09:03:18 +1100, Ron Jeffries wrote:
> 
> Now most of us who read larger methods are used to doing the reverse. We
> look at a big blob of code and figure out little chunks of it. Then
> maybe we comment the code or make a note or just leave the figuring out
> to the next person.
> 
> Tiny methods -- when you get used to them -- are IME /much/ easier to
> write and to work with.

I certainly dislike reading large pieces of code.  However, the
issue I have with this kind of approach, of having hundreds of
one or two methods, is that you can't get an overall feel for what
is going on easily.  You spend all your time trying to find all
those methods, as you've suggested.

Even with an easy way of finding them, such as some special purpose
browser ... by the way, with vi/vim you should be able to use rtags
for this, although I've not tried it myself ... I think the problem
is that by the time you've jumped around the source half a dozen
times, you've forgotten what it was that you were interested in
understanding in the first place.

Also, it feels like there's a lot of overhead in terms of typing
all those method headers.  That's not a big issue to me, but if
I can avoid needless typing, I'd prefer to.

Basically, I think what I'm saying is that I tend to split things
up when I think something is sufficiently complex to be a separate
routine and leave coherent pieces of code as a single entity.

Of course, I'm sure this is a personal preference ... just like
using Ruby versus using some other language.