From: spiralofhope <spiralofhope_rubyml@...>
Date: 2011-03-27T09:33:43+09:00
Subject: Scripting style (was: Clearer errors in 1.9's minitest)

On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:12:51 +0900
Ryan Davis <ryand-ruby@zenspider.com> wrote:

> You don't actually write your code that way, do you?

More or less.  I'm assuming you're commenting on my general style.
Below would be a full working bit of code.  It's rather pointlessly
simple but it demonstrates my "way".

---
require 'minitest/autorun'

class Whatever

  def foo( string )
    return string + '!'
  end

end

class Test_Whatever < MiniTest::Unit::TestCase

  def setup()
    @o = Whatever.new
  end

  def test_foo()
    assert_equal(
      ( 'yay!' ),
      ( @o.foo( 'yay' ) ),
    )
  end

end
---

I've taken extreme measures to make my code more readable.  While I
have exceptionally lucid times, I often have a _very_ hard time
"fitting a program into my head".

The real problem arises when I create magical code on one day and then
on some other day I am completely unable to comprehend it.

To help, I've been

- Breaking my problems down into sometimes embarrassingly-small pieces
- .. Each with its own test
- .. Usually with somewhat redundant comments.
- I've also thrown away regular alignment conventions.
- Ignoring performance improvements, preferring clearer and even
  redundant code. (lots of brackets, stuff on separate lines, trailing
  commas, etc)
- Using a very small subset of Ruby's functionality.  Doing things with
  brute force and which are far less pretty than possible.

In some cases I might even coerce code into something monstrous like
this:

  def test_foo()
    assert_equal(
              ( 'yay!' ),
      ( @o.foo( 'yay'  ) ),
    )
  end

The difference to me is that a bunch of programming that initially took
me a very long time has now taken me a very short time to rewrite from
scratch.  Think years to weeks.  The end result is vastly superior in
every way to me.  Faster, clearer, fully tested.  Most importantly I'm
enjoying myself!

I know that this means that if I ever manage to function with regular
style conventions I will be forced to re-rewrite everything to follow
them.  If it came to that, I would be pleased to do it.. I love that
kind of grunt work.  =)

I know I'm learning bad habits, my code will be "unreadable" to others,
I may not be able to read the source of others very well, and there are
probably lots of other issues.. but I needed a new way to approach
programming.  It's either that or I just give up.


-- 
http://spiralofhope.com