On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 04:31:12PM +0200, Sebastian Krebs wrote: [snip] > > 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? Here's why, and I've seen this happen a *lot*. The function may be properly named, but have side effects. Or the guy who named the function *thought* it was properly named, but was wrong. For example, he may have named the function "loadFromFile()", and the function does in fact do that. What the name doesn't tell you is that it then erases the file from which it pulled. Oops! No, you're correct, the function is *not* properly named in that case. But the guy who wrote it thought it was. And before I look at the internals of the function, I don't know whether it's properly named or not. Worse, the side effects may not show up until later, and then with disasterous results. Imagine assuming everything's okay, patching your code into the system, and finding out that it's been hacking up the customer's filesystem for the last three weeks. All because you didn't check to see what that other function was *actually* doing. Rule: NEVER assume you know what a function is doing by looking at its name. ALWAYS satisfy yourself that you know what a function is doing by *looking* at what it's doing. Paul -- Paul M. Foster http://noferblatz.com http://quillandmouse.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
