From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2010-01-26T17:15:15+09:00
Subject: Re: how to refactor these code?

2010/1/26 Zhenning Guan <g.zhen.ning@gmail.com>:
> def ss(s = 'hello', yeah = nil)
>  if yeah
>    puts "something"
>  else
>    puts "other thing"
>  end
>
>  #code continue ....
> end

What do you need argument "s" for?

> I have this method, use it like that:
>
> ss('hi', yeah = true)
> ss('hello')
> ss('fuck', yeah = true)
> ss('hello',yeah = true)
>
> very ugly.. sometimes I just need to passed yeah = true, but I have to
> added 'hello' first.
>
> what should I do?

Define two methods.  At least from the interface this is cleaner.
Generally flags that control method behavior are considered bad
practice because they tend to make the implementation of a method more
complex and tie things together that might really be independent (just
consider what happens if you inherit a class and want to change only
one of the two variants).

Note, you can still share an internal implementation under the hood e.g.

def ss1
  ss_impl "something"
end

def ss2
  ss_impl "other thing"
end

private
def ss_impl(x)
...
end

But your example is really a bit short to come up with a definitive
answer how to improve this.

Kind regards

robert

-- 
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/