Sadick

Posted on Jun 17, 2018

Back to basics: Naming

#naming #javascript #programming #discuss

Between these functions which one do you feel is appropriately named?

Top comments (29)

André Michel Andy • Jun 17 '18

Personally, I would use the third option because it looks great along with the if statement.

About the first, I think is not an appropriate name: the function's name says that the function will do some kind of modifications to the input email and then, return it.

About the second, I would use it if email were an object:

if(email.isValid()){
    //do some stuff
}

Lucas Silva • Jun 18 '18

Only if you have an email object :-D

Sadick • Jun 17 '18

Interesting. And what would be the structure of that email object.

André Michel Andy • Jun 17 '18

I think it will be like this:

class Email {
  constructor(email){
    this.email = email;
  }
  get user(){
    //return text before '@'
  }
  get domain(){
    //return domain
  }
  get tld(){
    //return top-level-domain
  }
  isValid(){
    //validate email string given in constructor
  }

}

For a lexical analyzer or something like that

lioobayoyo • Jun 20 '18

not meaning to troll or so, but you can have user@ipaddress as a validemail ;)

Albino Tonnina • Jun 17 '18

I say the second, isEmailValid.
Canonical is prefix when returning a boolean, others could be is-, has-, does.

Works well:


isEmailValid ? doThis(): doThat()

katy lavallee • Jun 17 '18 • Edited

Not listed, but I would use isValidEmail. is* is a good way to indicate true/false return value. And if (isValidEmail) reads well.

I would not use validateEmail because I would expect an error message in return, not a boolean.

I would not use isEmail because it sounds weird and unclear to me. I can’t put my finger on why though.

I would not use emailIsValid because I assume there would be a series of functions like this, and I would like their names to all start same.

Ben Sinclair • Jun 17 '18

isEmail sounds weird because it's too generic. For most purposes you'll be validating a user's input, and if they put in foo@example.com that may be a valid email address but it's not valid for use as such in the context of your app.

Sadick • Jun 18 '18

isValidEmail added. Thanks for the feedback.

Meghan (she/her) • Jun 17 '18 • Edited

Functionally, I like the second one the best.
I also concur with the

if (email.isValid()){
    //do some stuff
}

However, to go with the object-oriented I'd prefer

public Email(String email) throws InvalidParameterException {}

Sadick • Jun 17 '18 • Edited

If we were building a lexical analyzer, then this could be one way of modeling that. But in this case we are not. Also note: the question is on naming not structure. How naming affects code readability

Meghan (she/her) • Jun 17 '18

Naming wise, I like the second one. But if it was purely my choice I would not make a function to name in the first place and have the constructor do the validation during instantiation.

Sadick • Jun 17 '18

Does this mean that you will have to create a class and do validation in the constructor for everything in your code that needs validation?

Meghan (she/her) • Jun 17 '18

For high level objects that take arbitrary input, like an Email or URL, yes. Other things it's not always necessary because the type system ensures everything else is in order

Akshendra Pratap Singh • Jun 17 '18

I like to keep my validation functions in one module, generally named is. So, the call is something like is.email(val). However, if I have to choose a single function, I will name it isEmail. Having valid or validations with is seems a bit redundant to me.

Sadick • Jun 17 '18 • Edited

Nice catch. Let me also add that as a possibility

Valentin Baca • Jun 18 '18 • Edited

prereq question: Is 'email' an actual email or is it an email address?

Calling an 'email address' 'an email' could lead to confusion when you get to actually sending emails.

I'd prefer function isValidEmailAddress(str)

You also probably shouldn't be checking if their email address is valid. Just send the email.

hackernoon.com/the-100-correct-way...

Mark Lapierre • Jun 19 '18

I think this is the only valid answer so far. ;)

Seriously though, all the rest ignore the fact that validation is being performed on an email address, not an email. The order of the words doesn't matter much if they're misleading words.

And yup, even an email address with a valid format can still be wrong. I get spam all the time because people keep mistyping their email address. It drives me nuts.

So if you do anything at all, send an activation email.

Adrian B.G. • Jun 17 '18

It returns a boolean answer, so the function should be a question, so it should start with "is" in this case.

I don't think there is a case where "isEmail" and "isEmailValid" are 2 different things, so I will choose the simplest one #KISS.
but ...if you have more features like

function isEmail(e){}
function isEmailRegistered(e){}
function isEmailAdmin(e){}

isEmail will create confusion, and it will have to refactored to isEmailValid.

Alain Van Hout • Jun 18 '18

As with most things, it depends:

if the function is supposed to return a boolean (i.e. false or true), then isValidEmail seems like the most expressive, in that it leaves the least room for doubt regarding what the method requires as input and what it will return as output
if the function is supposed to throw an exception when the string isn't a valid email address and do nothing if it is a valid email address, then validateEmail seems like the most expressive choice

My thoughts on the other options:

isEmailValid: this one seems more at home in e.g. user.isEmailValid(), so as a plain function this name adds more ambiguity than is necessary
emailIsValid: the same, with the additional concern that it could just as well be the name of a variable/field than a method to be called/queried, so even more unnecessary ambiguity
isEmail: very, very vague. Does this refer to a valid email address, a known email address, an object of the type Email, the route via which the user prefers to be contacted ... ?

Max Cerrina • Jun 18 '18 • Edited

My own preference is for is... naming; it makes it clear that it's a boolean. I'd say isEmailValid or isEmail -- but with different contects. isEmail to me implies you are checking whether it's an email at all, but isEmailValid is checking if it is a valid email. A valid email is certainly an email.

Honestly, I'd probably have both, for different purposes. They read as completely distinct.

Stepan Stulov • Dec 19 '19 • Edited

"If am I developer?". Your code is a set of commands and statements. It doesn't ask its reader questions like how their day is. And everything, that's not some Email class's own function (a'la email.isValid) and that starts with "is" sounds like a question.

Only emailIsValid(email), rain or shine.

Also constructions like "if email is email" make no sense. Of course it is. You need to have a quality (such as "valid") to be used to distinguish good emails from bad ones.

Cheers

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Back to basics: Naming

Top comments (29)

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