Hi, Just want to throw my 2 cent in :) 2012/5/30 Tony Marston <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > "Ashley Sheridan" <ash@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message > news:1338326229.2616.31.camel@localhost.localdomain... > > On Tue, 2012-05-29 at 17:06 -0400, Paul M Foster wrote: > > > >> On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 08:52:46AM +0100, Tony Marston wrote: > >> > >> > On May 21, 2012, at 8:32 PM, tamouse mailing lists wrote: > >> > > A rule of thumb is no more than 50 lines per > >> > > function, most much less. Back in the day when we didn't have nifty > >> > > gui screens and an 24 line terminals (yay green on black!), if a > >> > > function exceeded one printed page, it was deemed too long and > marked > >> > > for refactoring. > >> > > >> > I think the idea of setting an arbitrary limit on the number of lines > >> > that a > >> > function should contain is quite ludicrous and something which I will > >> > completely ignore. If a function requires a hundred or more lines then > >> > so be > >> > it. The only reason to take a block of code and put it into its own > >> > function > >> > is when that code is likely to be called more than once so that it > >> > conforms > >> > to the DRY principle. If it is only ever used in one place then there > >> > is no > >> > point. > >> > > >> > The problems I have with creating lots of small used-only-once > >> > functions is > >> > as follows: > >> > - you have to create a meaningful name for each function. > >> > - all those functions should be arranged in alphabetical order within > >> > their > >> > containing file - having them in a random sequence makes it difficult > >> > to > >> > find the one you want. > >> > <snip> > > > > And yeah, alphabetical order? Really? > > This is a throwback to my 3GL days when all components within a file were > arranged in alphabetical sequence so that they were easier to find when you > looked at the printed listing. > > > Group them by similarity, sure. > > But today, with IDEs that will jump straight to functions and class > > methods, and the good ol' find tool on every editor I've ever seen, is > > sorting them alphabetically really necessary? Seems like a waste of time > > that is likely not going to be done by fellow developers working on the > > same codebase. > > I have never come across an IDE that jumps to a function when you click on > its name, so how does it return to where you jumped from? > At least PhpStorm and Eclipse have a feature to return where you come from. I haven't seen an IDE, that is _not_ able to jump to a functions or methods source for a long time now. > > Rather than artificially reduce the size of a function to satisfy someone > else's limited attention span I would rather use the scroll wheel on my > mouse. Scrolling up or down within a single function is easier than > searching/finding/jumping to a series of sub-functions which may exist at > random locations within the same file. > If the functions were named properly you don't have to follow every execution path to the deepest deep. Or do you reading PHPs C-source, just because a wild "substr()" appeared? When you see a method "loadFromFile()" and the IDE tells you, that it expects a $filename as parameter, why should you jump there just to make sure, that the method loads something from a file by the filename given as first parameter? > > I will only split a large function into sub-functions when it makes sense > to > do so, and not because some nerd cannot scan more than 20 lines at a time. > The question I ask myself is: Why ^should^ a scan more than 20 lines at a time, if it is possible, to make it clearer, but another nerd decided, that it is too much work (or whatever). Maybe it's may "attention span", but I'm usually slightly bugged, when I have to read code monsters. Compared to a book it's a kind of "One chapter in a single sentence". Regards, Sebastian > > -- > Tony Marston > > http://www.tonymarston.net > http://www.radicore.org > > > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > >
