Are you seriously saying that the best code is an untestable mess of big God classes?
Because in my experience this is by far the type of code written by inexperienced programmers.
Abstractions and interfaces are the best way to make a system testable and extensible and it has nothing to do with using a pattern just because you read about it in the gof book 5 minutes ago.
And using public fields in a non trivial project is a sure receipt for disaster.
Better than ugly, beautiful is.
Better then implicit, explicit is.
Better than complex, simple is.
Better than complicated, complex is.
Better than nested, flat is.
Better than dense, sparse is.
Counts, readability does.
Special enough to break the rules, special cases are not.
But beaten by practicality, purity is.
Silently passed, an error should never be.
Unless explicitly, is it silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, the temptation to guess, refuse you must.
One, preferably only one, way to do it, there should be.
Not obvious, it might be.
Better than never, is now.
But often better than right now, is never.
If hard to explain, bad it is.
If easy to explain, good it may be.
Namespaces are a honking good idea - more of them we should do!
So which rule take precedents here? Namespace is obviously not flat, at least it's more nested than one without namespace.
That's the problem I have with people praising Zen of Python as if it means anything. It's like a bible you just pick the verse you like to justify your action even if it might conflict with other rules. Then you praise the whole thing for being so wise.
It means a lot: good python code follows it. However, yes, some of the verses conflict, because it turns out that good advice sometimes contradicts itself. All I can say is don't go too far in either direction.
You would prefer PHP[1] where the standard library has no namespaces?
[1] I refer to "classic" PHP. No clue if anything PHP5+ fixed this, though I doubt that they would make such a breaking changed even across major revisions.
Yes, I would. And though PHP is widely agreed to be piece of shit (it seems: I don't work with PHP so I'm here only relaying this popular sentiment), that doesn't tarnish the idea by association (which is what I sense you might be trying to do).
ISO C and POSIX also have a flat library namespace, together with the programs written on top. Yet, people write big applications and everything is cool. Another example is that every darned non-static file-scope identifier in the Linux kernel that isn't in a module is in the same global namespace.
Namespaces are uglifying and an idiotic solution in search of a problem. They amount to run-time cutting and pasting (one of the things which the article author is against). Because if you have some foo.bar.baz, often things are configured in the program so that just the short name baz is used in a given scope. So effectively the language is gluing together "foo.bar" and "baz" to resolve the unqualified reference. The result is that when you see "baz" in the code, you don't know which "baz" in what namespace that is.
The ISO C + POSIX solution is far better: read, fread, aio_read, open,
fopen, sem_open, ...
You never set up a scope where "sem_" is implicit so that "open" means "sem_open".
Just use "sem_open" when you want "sem_open". Then I can put the cursor on it and get a man page in one keystroke.
Keep the prefixes short and sweet and everything is cool.
I was a big believer in namespaces 20 years ago when they started to be used in C++. I believed the spiel about it providing isolation for large scale projects. I don't believe it that much any more, because projects in un-namespaced C have gotten a lot larger since then, and the sky did not fall.
Scoping is the real solution. Componentize the software. Keep the component-private identifiers completely private. (For instance, if you're making shared libs, don't export any non-API symbols for dynamic linking at all.) Expose only API's with a well-considered naming scheme that is unlikely to clash with anything.
PHP namespacing in many ways ruined the language. I'm not just talking about the poorly chosen use of the backslash '\' path separator or the fact that namespaces aren't automatically inferred which causes me to have to write "use" endless times at the top of the file which destroys my productivity when working outside an IDE.
I'm talking about the heart of PHP which is stream processing. Why in the world would you destroy the notion of simply including other source files in order to wedge in this C++ centric notion of a namespace? Before "namespace" and "use", the idea was that all of the files included together can be treated as one large file, and sadly that conceptual simplicity has been lost.
Also the lost opportunity of having objects be associative arrays like Javascript, combined with namespacing, have convinced me that perhaps PHP should be forked to a language more in-line with its roots. I haven't tried Hack or PHP7 yet but I am apprehensive that they probably make things worse in their own ways.
I think of PHP as a not-just-write-only version of Perl, lacking the learning curve of Ruby, with far surpassed forgiveness and access to system APIs over Javascript/NodeJS. Which is why it's still my favorite language, even though the curators have been asleep at the wheel at the most basic levels.
The standard library isn't namespaced. If you want to use a stdlib function inside an NS, you can without issue. If you want to use a stdlib class, or any top level class, it needs backslash before its name or you need to import it.
There is a community move towards a standard namespacing with PHP-FIG. This is useful and we are seeing lots of progress on internals thanks to the work by the community.
Like a lot of things, PHP name spaces are or were a big mess. Lots of progress is being made to improve though I think a lot must remain.
I've thought about creating a project that packages up various categories in the stdlib into namespaces with consistent inputs and outputs. That would be nice but the process isn't a lot of fun.
(an attempt to translate to standard english grammar, for the benefit of other non-native English readers, who may also struggle to parse this)
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better then implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases are not special enough to break the rules.
But purity is beaten by practicality.
An error should never be silently passed.
Unless it is silenced explicitly.
You must refuse the temptation to guess in the face of ambiguity.
There should be one, preferably only one, way to do it.
It might not be obvious.
Now is better than never.
But never is often better than right now.
It is bad if it is hard to explain.
It may be good if it is easy to explain.
Namespaces are a honking good idea - we should do more of them!
I think the advice is more relevant in the context of the specific language; it's not universal.
In python you can go from attribute access to using a property (getter/setter) without breaking anything.
The same is not true in a language like Java where obj.foo is always a direct field access distinct from calling a method like obj.getFoo(), so going from public fields to getters is not backwards compatible and can be painful.
>In python you can go from attribute access to using a property (getter/setter) without breaking anything.
True, but that should be avoided if possible. Python 'properties' violate the principal of "explicit is better than implicit". Once you realize "Oops, I need an accessor function here", the lazy programmer says "Aww, grepping for all uses of .foo and replacing them with .getFoo() will take 20 minutes. Instead, I'll just redefine it as a property and no one will notice." If you care about quality, go the extra mile: make it clear to the people reading your code that a function is being called.
Properties are a kinda nice language feature, but they are so frequently misused that I think the language would have been better off without them. They encourage bad habits.
However, it's still a simple enough change that you shouldn't build getter/setters unless you're already pretty sure it'll be changed. OTOH, if you're using a language with generated getter/setters (ruby, smalltalk, lisp), just do it.
I use getters and setters, but still think you will waste more time arguing about this issue, than leaving it be and finding out you have to change them down the line.
Edit: also, especially for getters, I like my accessors to be simple accessors. Hiding too much code behind them can be unpleasantly surprising, so as they deviate further from accessors I like to rename them - e.g. CalculateXxxx rather than GetXxx. Fewer surprises. Given that, I potentially have an issue with continuing to call it GetXXX or SetXXX in the face of certain changes.
Using an IDE with an understanding of the language you have is even less painful. Having the IDE automatically refactor a public field to use getters and setters is a breeze with managed languages like Java and C#.
The same can be said about interal interfaces with only one implementation. If there is really a need for an interface then why not add it later until it's actually needed it instead of creating additional overhead for something we may never need?
If there are inexperienced programmers working on it, as in my preamble, then almost surely it is in whatever language that doesn't prohibit to mutate objects indiscriminately.
In F#, Haskell and other languages that enforce immutability obviously it isn't a problem, in Python most surely it is.
Code can be underabstracted, but it can also be overabstracted - and abstracted with the wrong abstractions. And fixing the latter sometimes involves a temporary stay at "untestable mess of big God classes" when you remove the bad abstractions to clear the way for creating better ones. Not because it's the best code - far from it - but because it's slightly less terrible code.
> And using public fields in a non trivial project is a sure receipt for disaster.
Ergo, all non trivial C projects are disasters? Well, maybe, but I disagree on the reasons.
Language enforced encapsulation is a useful tool, but some people take it to the deep end and assume that if their math library's 3D vector doesn't hide "float z;" in favor of "void set_z(float new_z);" and "float get_z() const;" (one of which will probably have a copy+paste bug because hey, more stupid boilerplate code), they'll have a sure receipt for disaster. Which I suspect you'd agree is nonsense - but would also follow from reading your words a little too literally.
In my experience, in quite big projects, people had a tendency to mutate objects in the wrong place and in the wrong reasons.
A field encapsulated in a getter without setter certainly helps.
But if it has to be able to be mutated in some cases, you're stuck. This is a place where Scheme's parameterize may be useful: Define a closure with the setter in scope, and write it so that when it's called with a lambda as an arg, it will raise an error unless those certain conditions are met, in which case, it will use parameterize to make the setter available in the lambda's scope. Or I suppose it could pass it in, which would be slightly simpler...
The issue is, for example, if you have for example a class encapsulating a bunch of flags, and allowing the user to either set each flag seperately, or a bitfield representing all of it.
In C, you might be able to do some magic, but in Java, you’ll need setters and getters there – you can’t even do final fields there.
Luckily, in C#, you can just use accessors, and maybe in Java with Lombok, too.
I think he is rather referring to cascades of function calls/types and "custom solutions". Of course abstractions are a great tool when used properly. Thinking of a best practice from Object oriented design: low coupling but high cohesion.
When you use abstractions, you get low coupling. But like everything in life, also this has a price: you may need an extra line of code to instantiate the abstraction and sometimes have to write an extra getter because it's not perfect yet. That's a fine price to pay unless go you use way too many abstractions and they are nested deeply. It may have some aesthetics but it can be hell to debug and overly complicated to extend code.
So that's why one must also focus on high cohesion. I really like the modern JavaScript way, the imports/requires are for low coupling and the build automation is for cohesion. Anyways, these things are best practices as well but not sure if the author took those into account... ;)
I don't think that's seriously what he's saying. You've over-interpreted to project the "logical" extreme of the POV expressed on the author. This is a trope in online debate that needs to die.
I've returned recently ( for domain-specific reasons ) to sets of (opaque) god-classes with good interfaces when needed. No state in a god-class is visible except through the interface.
Since the domain requires a great deal of serialization, the interfaces are usually strings over that. In cases, it's even easier to just open a socket to the serialization interface.
So far, I'm able to pub/sub periodic data streams, but it'd be pretty easy to add "wake me when" operators and such.
It forces the use of one central table of names cross callbacks ( which can be grown dynamically ) but it's very, very nice to work with.
YMMV. The domain is instrumentation and industrial control, which just fits this pattern nicely. All use cases can and are specified as message sequences.
I've been using the delegation pattern a lot lately as a nice way to combine the best bits of god classes (few dependencies) with the best of SRP (small easy to test parts).
This way A, B, C (and many others) only depends on X, the delegator (which exposes a number of interfaces for practically everything), but X depends on everything and the kitchen sink, X contains no real functionality.
>And using public fields in a non trivial project is a sure receipt for disaster.
Why, though? Surely it's the programmers' job to access what they need and leave alone what the don't. As someone else said, Python has no concept of public/private and it works okay.
If you make the statically typed field public you lose the ability to change the implementation without breaking the clients. (Getters/setters have the same problems, but not as pronounced). And no, you don't always have the ability to recompile everything that's using your code.
An argument for properties are to hide the implementation details. It keeps idiots from changing variables they shouldn't (if they really want to, there's sometimes reflection), and it hides implementation detail variables from the autocomplete box.
