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ㄥ8Ɩ llǝɯS ǝpoƆ - spɹɐʍʞɔɐq ǝslƎ/ℲI

Maxi Contieri on December 17, 2022

The first thing we read after the if the condition is the IF TL;DR: You have the important else condition on the else. Problems Rea...
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Tracy Gilmore •

Hi Maxi,
RANT WARNING
I see more of this type of code in reviews since the adoption of agile practices. I think this is down to a combination of factors:
Inexperienced developers changing pre-existing code and understandably fearful of introducing a bug by changing more than they need to in order to get the job done.

  • IMO that is what unit tests are for, to help developers refactor code with confidence.
  • Another factor is the lack of or a poor (possibly toxic) peer review process and lack of/poor coding standards/conventions that lets poor code enter and persist in the code base.
  • The continual pressure to deliver features at the cost of addressing increasing technical debt (because is does not deliver value to the end-user).

In short, the degradation of sound Software Engineering principles.

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Maxi Contieri •

Rant accepted. we have more automated review tools than ever!

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Tracy Gilmore •

Whilst I agree linting tools and prettifies are very useful they cannot replace the human peer-review. Linters and prettifies cannot draw on personal experience (lessons learned) to advise and instruct junior team members.

One of the downsides of remote working, which I am finding is particularly prevalent in the software industry (in the UK), is the reduced team interaction that can result and the impact this has on bringing on junior team members. This is why I personally think peer-programming is more important than ever.

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Vincent A. Cicirello •

I like the post title for this one. Very creative.

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José Pablo Ramírez Vargas •

Ok, I must ask: How were you able to invert the orientation of the title?

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Maxi Contieri •

It is just "upside down text" :)

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Gabor Szabo • • Edited

I wonder what do you say about languages that allow the condition to come after the statement?

doSomething() if cartExists();
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and then what about

createCart() if ! cartExists();
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or

createCart() unless cartExists();
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Maxi Contieri •

nice and intersting.
unless is pretty clear

the other sintax is new to me. which language is?

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Gabor Szabo •

Both Perl and Raku

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Vincent A. Cicirello •

Python allows statements like this:

x = 100 if condition() else 50
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It is basically like the conditional ternary operator of Java, C, C++, but with condition in the middle.

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Maxi Contieri •

nice and clear!

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Vincent A. Cicirello •

I've seen instances of this used with backwards if..else like:

x = 50 if not condition() else 100
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So potential for same issues as normal if/else.