From: Ryan Davis <ryand-ruby@...>
Date: 2010-12-23T13:40:10+09:00
Subject: Re: How to DRY code to prompt for parameters


On Dec 22, 2010, at 20:10 , RichardOnRails wrote:

> I pasted code to prompt for a couple of parameter-values at
> http://www.pastie.org/1399710.
> 
> Running this code under SciTE produces, for example:
> Getting parms
> 	Account Number: 123
> 	Report  Period: 456
> Showing parms
> 	@acct_num = 123
> 	@acct_period = 456
> 
> It is excessively verbose because I couldn't figure out how to use
> meta-language to specify the parameter target names.

It is excessively verbose because you wrote 53 lines when 4 would do:

print "Account Number: "
@acct_num = gets.to_i
print "Report  Period: "
@acct_period = gets.to_i

There is nothing wrong with that code. It doesn't have to be 13x more complex to ask the user 2 simple questions.

The definition of DRY is "Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system" not "ZOMG I see a 2 line pattern! must kill!"

Please. Do the simplest thing that could possibly work.

P.S. AGAIN with the tabs. I almost didn't write this email at all just because reading your code is too hard.