From: "Guy N. Hurst" <gnhurst@...>
Date: 2002-03-20T00:53:39+09:00
Subject: Re: style choice

Ron Jeffries wrote:
> 
> A style question for the community ... which of the following do you prefer, and
> why? Or, if you prefer some third version, what is it and why?
> 
>   def degree
>     return @degree if @degree > 0
>     @scopes.each { | field | @degree += field.length }
>     @degree
>   end
> 
>   def degree
>     @scopes.each { | field | @degree += field.length } if @degree == 0
>     @degree
>   end
> 

For me, it depends.

I would use the first form for things like handling error conditions:

def mymethod(param=[])
  return nil unless Array===param
  # rest of code expecting param to be an array
end

But in your case, it is an instance variable and possibly always
known to be a number, so maybe I wouldn't need that form there.

The second form uses an if-modifier after a block, which seems unusual to me,
since I don't usually modify an iterator. Instead, I would typically
loop over a conditional.

In this case, I would tend to go for a third form, I think.

def degree
  if @degree.zero?
    @scopes.each{|field| @degree += field.length }
  end
  @degree
end

This seems balanced to me.


Guy N. Hurst