I see this recommended in the dart style guide, and copied in tons of tutorials and flutter source.
final foo = config.foo;
I don't understand it, how is this considered best practice when the readability is so poor? I have no clue what foo is here, surely final String foo = config.foo is preferable if we really want to use final?
This seems the equivalent to using var, which many consider a bad practice because it prevents the compiler from spotting errors and is less readable.
Where am I wrong?
In a lot of cases is does not really matter what type you are using as long the specific type can be statically determined by the compiler. When you are using var/final in Dart it is not that Dart does not know the type, it will just figure it out automatically based on the context. But the type must still be defined when the program are compiled so the types will never be dynamic based on runtime behavior. If you want truly dynamic types, you can use the dynamic keyword where you tell Dart "trust me, I know what I am doing with this types".
So types should still be defined where it matter most. This is e.g. for return and argument types for methods and class variables. The common factor for this types is that they are used to define the interface for using the method or class.
But when you are writing code inside a method, you are often not that interested in the specific types of variables used inside the method. Instead the focus should be the logic itself and you can often make it even more clear by using good describing variable names. As long the Dart analyzer can figure out the type, you will get autocomplete from your IDE and you can even still see the specific type from your IDE by e.g. Ctrl+Q in IntelliJ on the variable if you ends up in a situation where you want to know the type.
This is in particular the case when we are talking about the use of generics where it can be really tiresome to write the full specific type. Especially if you are using multiple generics inside each other like e.g. Map<String, List<String>>.
In my experience, Dart is really good to figure out very specific types and will complain loudly if your code cannot be determined statically. In the coming future, Dart will introduce non-null by default, which will make the Dart compiler and analyzer even more powerful since it will make sure your variable cannot be null unless this is something you specifically want and will make sure you are going to test for null when using methods which are specified to not expecting null.
About "Where am I wrong?". Well, a lot of languages have similar feature of var/final like Dart with the same design principle about the type should still be statically determined by a compiler or runtime. And even Java has introducing this feature. As a experienced Java and Dart programmer I have come to the conclusion for myself that typing inside methods are really not that important in a lot of cases as long I can still easily figure out the specific type by using an IDE when it really matters.
But it does make it more important to name your variables so they are clearly defining the purpose. But I am hoping you already are doing that. :)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, since it's not really a technical question but more a question of style and coding practices...
I've always ben a fan of using "const" to define variables that will not be changing throughout their lifetime, most especially when they are parameters to functions/methods. This probably stems from my history with C++, where objects could be passed by reference rather than by pointer, but you wanted to ensure that the original value wasn't accidentally altered, either by you or by someone else on your team who was working on the same code snippet.
When looking through the headers for both Objective-C in general and Cocos2d specifically, I've noticed that there is a noticeable lack of use of this item. Now, I'm not against developing code as quickly as possible, and leaving off constraints such as these leave the developer the option to modify values as their code develops and evolves, but there are some instances where I believe that this laxity does not belong.
For example, in Cocos2D/UIKit, the "UIFont fontWithName" method takes "(NSString *)" as the parameter for the font name: does this method really need to reserve the right to alter the original string that was passed in? I personally like to define constant strings as "const" items, and I don't like the necessity of casting these as non-"const" when calling these methods.
Enough proselytizing: My question - Is the direction now moving towards less well-defined interfaces and more towards "lazy references" (which I do not consider to be a derogative term)?
Thanks in advance for any feedback....
Const wouldn't mean anything for Objective C class pointers, because it would have to be overloaded in a very confusing way for Objective C types. This is because there's no way to mark a method as const, as there is in C++, so the compiler could never enforce it.
That said, at my old company, we did declare global string constants using something like:
NSString* const kMyCoolString = #"Hello, world!";
The point being that it at least couldn't be reassigned to something else.
The closest analog in Objective C/Cocoa/Foundation are mutable/immutable versions of data structures, which doesn't really help your case.
I came across the following code the other day (below) and wondered if it achieves anything of significance in Dart other than the fact that the Class instantiation cannot be changed. I did read some SO posts regarding Java, however they didn't appear conclusive, and don't necessarily apply to Dart. I would not have coded it that way (with final), however perhaps I should. Is there any major significance to using "final" in this instance and what does it achieve?
import 'dart:math';
final _random = new Random();
From Dart: Up and Running:
If you never intend to change a variable, use final or const, either instead of var or in addition to a type. A final variable can be set only once; a const variable is a compile-time constant.
A local, top-level, or class variable that’s declared as final is initialized the first time it’s used.
So there are three benefits to using final here:
If some code erroneously tries to set _random another time, an error will be generated.
It is also clearer to other programmers (or the same programmer at a later date) that _random is never intended to be changed.
_random is not initialized until it used, so the application will start faster.
For those reasons, I would consider this a good use of final; certainly the code would "work" without it, but it's better this way.
In short, I think the book offers sound advice: "If you never intend to change a variable, use final or const".
From the documentation :
A local, top-level, or class variable that’s declared as final is initialized the first time it’s used. Lazy initialization of final variables helps apps start up faster.
I have been reading up on the c++ auto_ptr and unique_ptr and stuff and thought to try and use them in a class I am playing with... but I was having trouble getting it to work...
How would I convert these pointers to auto pointers or some equivalent so the deletion of the pointers is handled automatically?
Header - http://ideone.com/Z9bc5
Body - http://ideone.com/WfwBY
At the moment it is working using normal pointers but I sometimes get a access violation error. I am pretty sure I know what it causing it.. but the "best" way might be to use the automatic deletion stuff recently added to c++11?
Thanks in advance.
Don't use auto_ptr. Try one of unique_ptr or shared_ptr. Here's Sutter explaining when to use which:
When in doubt, prefer unique_ptr by default, and you can always later move-convert to shared_ptr if you need it. If you know from the start you need shared ownership, however, go directly to shared_ptr via make_shared (see #2 below).
Also from his blog-post:
3. What’s the deal with auto_ptr?
auto_ptr is most charitably characterized as a valiant attempt to
create a unique_ptr before C++ had move semantics.
auto_ptr is now deprecated, and should not be used in new code. When
you get a chance, try doing a global search-and-replace of auto_ptr to
unique_ptr in your code base; the vast majority of uses will work the
same, and it might expose (as a compile-time error) or fix (silently)
a bug or two you didn’t know you had.
So, your member declarations change from:
sf::Texture * tSpriteSheet;
to:
std::unique_ptr<sf::Texture> tSpriteSheet;
As for member functions which return a raw pointer you have but the obvious choice: You cannot return a unique_ptr if the class is not movable. So, you can either:
Keep the signature as-is
Return a const& unique_ptr<T>
Return a reference to the object
Choose the one that suits your needs the best.
I've been a bad programmer because I am doing a copy and paste. An example is that everytime i connect to a database and retrieve a recordset, I will copy the previous code and edit, copy the code that sets the datagridview and edit. I am aware of the phrase code reuse, but I have not actually used it. How can i utilize code reuse so that I don't have to copy and paste the database code and the datagridview code.,
The essence of code reuse is to take a common operation and parameterize it so it can accept a variety of inputs.
Take humble printf, for example. Imagine if you did not have printf, and only had write, or something similar:
//convert theInt to a string and write it out.
char c[24];
itoa(theInt, c, 10);
puts(c);
Now this sucks to have to write every time, and is actually kind of buggy. So some smart programmer decided he was tired of this and wrote a better function, that in one fell swoop print stuff to stdout.
printf("%d", theInt);
You don't need to get as fancy as printf with it's variadic arguments and format string. Even just a simple routine such as:
void print_int(int theInt)
{
char c[24];
itoa(theInt, c, 10);
puts(c);
}
would do the trick nickely. This way, if you want to change print_int to always print to stderr you could update it to be:
void print_int(int theInt)
{
fprintf(stderr, "%d", theInt);
}
and all your integers would now magically be printed to standard error.
You could even then bundle that function and others you write up into a library, which is just a collection of code you can load in to your program.
Following the practice of code reuse is why you even have a database to connect to: someone created some code to store records on disk, reworked it until it was usable by others, and decided to call it a database.
Libraries do not magically appear. They are created by programmers to make their lives easier and to allow them to work faster.
Put the code into a routine and call the routine whenever you want that code to be executed.
Check out Martin Fowler's book on refactoring, or some of the numerous refactoring related internet resources (also on stackoverflow), to find out how you could improve code that has smells of duplication.
At first, create a library with reusable functions. They can be linked with different applications. It saves a lot of time and encourages reuse.
Also be sure the library is unit tested and documented. So it is very easy to find the right class/function/variable/constant.
Good rule of thumb is if you use same piece three times, and it's obviously possible to generalize it, than make it a procedure/function/library.
However, as I am getting older, and also more experienced as a professional developer, I am more inclined to see code reuse as not always the best idea, for two reasons:
It's difficult to anticipate future needs, so it's very hard to define APIs so you would really use them next time. It can cost you twice as much time - once you make it more general just so that second time you are going to rewrite it anyway. It seems to me that especially Java projects of late are prone to this, they seem to be always rewritten in the framework du jour, just to be more "easier to integrate" or whatever in the future.
In a larger organization (I am a member of one), if you have to rely on some external team (either in-house or 3rd party), you can have a problem. Your future then depends on their funding and their resources. So it can be a big burden to use foreign code or library. In a similar fashion, if you share a piece of code to some other team, they can then expect that you will maintain it.
Note however, these are more like business reasons, so in open source, it's almost invariably a good thing to be reusable.
to get code reuse you need to become a master of...
Giving things names that capture their essence. This is really really important
Making sure that it only does one thing. This is really comes back to the first point, if you can't name it by its essence, then often its doing too much.
Locating the thing somewhere logical. Again this comes back to being able to name things well and capturing its essence...
Grouping it with things that build on a central concept. Same as above, but said differntly :-)
The first thing to note is that by using copy-and-paste, you are reusing code - albeit not in the most efficient way.
You have recognised a situation where you have come up with a solution previously.
There are two main scopes that you need to be aware of when thinking about code reuse. Firstly, code reuse within a project and, secondly, code reuse between projects.
The fact that you have a piece of code that you can copy and paste within a project should be a cue that the piece of code that you're looking at is useful elsewhere. That is the time to make it into a function, and make it available within the project.
Ideally you should replace all occurrances of that code with your new function, so that it (a) reduces redundant code and (b) ensures that any bugs in that chunk of code only need to be fixed in one function instead of many.
The second scope, code reuse across projects, requires some more organisation to get the maximum benefit. This issue has been addressed in a couple of other SO questions eg. here and here.
A good start is to organise code that is likely to be reused across projects into source files that are as self-contained as possible. Minimise the amount of supporting, project specific, code that is required as this will make it easier to reuse entire files in a new project. This means minimising the use of project specific data-types, minimising the use project specific global variables, etc.
This may mean creating utility files that contain functions that you know are going to be useful in your environment. eg. Common database functions if you often develop projects that depend on databases.
I think the best way to answer your problem is that create a separate assembly for your important functions.. in this way you can create extension methods or modify the helper assemble itself.. think of this function..
ExportToExcel(List date, string filename)
this method can be use for your future excel export functions so why don't store it in your own helper assembly.. i this way you just add reference to these assemblies.
Depending on the size of the project can change the answer.
For a smaller project I would recommend setting up a DatabaseHelper class that does all your DB access. It would just be a wrapper around opening/closing connections and execution of the DB code. Then at a higher level you can just write the DBCommands that will be executed.
A similar technique could be used for a larger project, but would need some additional work, interfaces need to be added, DI, as well as abstracting out what you need to know about the database.
You might also try looking into ORM, DAAB, or over to the Patterns and Practices Group
As far as how to prevent the ole C&P? - Well as you write your code, you need to periodically review it, if you have similar blocks of code, that only vary by a parameter or two, that is always a good candidate for refactoring into its own method.
Now for my pseudo code example:
Function GetCustomer(ID) as Customer
Dim CMD as New DBCmd("SQL or Stored Proc")
CMD.Paramaters.Add("CustID",DBType,Length).Value = ID
Dim DHelper as New DatabaseHelper
DR = DHelper.GetReader(CMD)
Dim RtnCust as New Customer(Dx)
Return RtnCust
End Function
Class DataHelper
Public Function GetDataTable(cmd) as DataTable
Write the DB access code stuff here.
GetConnectionString
OpenConnection
Do DB Operation
Close Connection
End Function
Public Function GetDataReader(cmd) as DataReader
Public Function GetDataSet(cmd) as DataSet
... And So on ...
End Class
For the example you give, the appropriate solution is to write a function that takes as parameters whatever it is that you edit whenever you paste the block, then call that function with the appropriate data as parameters.
Try and get into the habit of using other people's functions and libraries.
You'll usually find that your particular problem has a well-tested, elegant solution.
Even if the solutions you find aren't a perfect fit, you'll probably gain a lot of insight into the problem by seeing how other people have tackled it.
I'll do this at two levels. First within a class or namespace, put that code piece that is reused in that scope in a separate method and make sure it is being called.
Second is something similar to the case that you are describing. That is a good candidate to be put in a library or a helper/utility class that can be reused more broadly.
It is important to evaluate everything that you are doing with an perspective whether it can be made available to others for reuse. This should be a fundamental approach to programming that most of us dont realize.
Note that anything that is to be reused needs to be documented in more detail. Its naming convention be distinct, all the parameters, return results and any constraints/limitations/pre-requisites that are needed should be clearly documented (in code or help files).
It depends somewhat on what programming language you're using. In most languages you can
Write a function, parameterize it to allow variations
Write a function object, with members to hold the varying data
Develop a hierarchy of (function object?) classes that implement even more complicated variations
In C++ you could also develop templates to generate the various functions or classes at compile time
Easy: whenever you catch yourself copy-pasting code, take it out immediately (i.e., don't do it after you've already CP'd code several times) into a new function.