Re: confusing Perl idioms and practices
At 11:01 28.06.2001 -0700, Peter Scott wrote: Readable is like obscene (in more ways than one, in some code I've seen). I spent a little time in my book (one day I hope to have to say which book :-) going over pros and cons of different takes on this. But as it stands, readable is simply meaningless, and guaranteed to cause friction. Your elaboration doesn't help either. Readable is only meaningful in a context of how the code is going to be used and what your tactical and strategic goals are. Debating it in a virtual vacuum like this is what I call a pinhead discusssion - how many angels can dance on the head of a pin... If you define readable as simple enough for the extreme beginner to understand, I agree. This is not only obscene, it also makes it impossible to take full advantage of the language, as some constructs are necessarily complicated, and require a firm understanding of Perl to decipher. However, I think a general level of non-obfuscation can be reached. When working in groups, it becomes a necessity. It's a matter of finding a common style in the group. This saves time when someone is on vacation and you have to fix a bug in their code. If they go around naming variables $x and $y instead of $names and $sizes (or, even better, $raNames and $raSizes), you spend a lot of time just figuring out what's going on. Many will argue (correctly) that no decent programmer would name his or her variables $x and $y outside of a for loop. However, rejecting readability out of hand as catering to beginners leads to similar behavior. I always prefer an extra line of code in the spirit of readability. If nothing else, it saves me from getting phone calls when I should be laying on the beach :) Aaron Craig Programming iSoftitler.com
Re: confusing Perl idioms and practices
Aaron == Aaron Craig [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Aaron If you define readable as simple enough for the extreme beginner to Aaron understand, I agree. This is not only obscene, it also makes it Aaron impossible to take full advantage of the language, as some constructs Aaron are necessarily complicated, and require a firm understanding of Perl Aaron to decipher. I'll second this. In our professional code reviews, I have no problem with requiring the maintenance programmer to know everything in Learning Perl, plus whatever they can grok from perlreftut and perlboot, plus some problem-domain-specific information. However, if someone is being particularly obscure, there'd better be a reason: either there's a performance advantage, in which case the obfuscation must be documented precisely, or it's gotta be simplified before it passes. -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/ Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
Re: confusing Perl idioms and practices
At 09:52 AM 6/28/01 -0700, Gregg Williams wrote: Hi--I recently posted a message titled writing readable Perl. In it, I said: snip This is a simple example--too simple for some--but it gives you an idea of what I'm looking for. Thanks again for your time. Readable is like obscene (in more ways than one, in some code I've seen). I spent a little time in my book (one day I hope to have to say which book :-) going over pros and cons of different takes on this. But as it stands, readable is simply meaningless, and guaranteed to cause friction. Your elaboration doesn't help either. Readable is only meaningful in a context of how the code is going to be used and what your tactical and strategic goals are. Debating it in a virtual vacuum like this is what I call a pinhead discusssion - how many angels can dance on the head of a pin... -- Peter Scott Pacific Systems Design Technologies http://www.perldebugged.com
