Re: [wxperl-users] declarative syntax (please, "longer" ne "better"!)

[Sergei S. <ser...@ya...>]

--- Eric Wilhelm <scr...@gm...> wrote:

> # from Sergei Steshenko
> # on Sunday 18 March 2007 04:08 pm:
> 
> >>   ...
> >>   funky_array => do {my @p = (1,2);
> >>     [1,2,map({push(@p, my $v = shift(@p)+$p[0]); $v} 3..100)]},
> >>   ...
> >
> >Why should I load my brain trying to understand what $p means ?
> >And what is $v if I may ?
> 
> Well, one-letter variables that only appear within a closed block on two 
> lines of code never bothered me.  I prefer to think about the algorithm 
> and not whether the code *appears* to be readable.  It's encapsulated 
> by virtue of its seeming opacity.
> 
> >I prefer readable code, not a short one.
> 
> I prefer correct code.  If my subtlety eludes you, go run yours and see 
> what answer you get.  It is just a long-winded [map({2**$_} 0..99)] 
> (i.e. a doubling sequence) which is at-a-glance very readably wrong.
> 
> I really don't understand why so many people seem to think that longer 
> code is somehow better and more readable.  Have they had a readability 
> study?  Would you call a 5000-page novel "readable"?  Is a 20-hour 
> movie "watchable"?  If you're writing 10 times as much Perl as you 
> should, why not just use C?  You'll have the same number of bugs, but 
> they'll run faster :-D
> 
> A local news station once had (maybe still does have) the slogan "Clear, 
> accurate, and to-the-point."  I always thought it ironic that they 
> would use so many words to claim that they are "concise".
> 
> I'm not claiming that code should be all one-character variable names in 
> a single chain of compile-time map() statements with no carriage 
> returns (for that, you need lisp.)  Rather, code should not be any 
> longer than it needs to be.  A large part of Perl's expressiveness 
> comes from context, implied information, and concision.  There's more 
> than one way to do it, but there's a whole lot of ways to do it wrong.
> 
> Concise and correct code beats long-winded incorrect code.  Further, 
> short and incorrect code is easier to fix.  In fact, the longer code is 
> obfuscated by its shear size.  Ever heard the phrase "needle in a 
> haystack"?  For code to be readable, you have to understand what it is 
> doing.  I could use utf8 with greek characters for variable names and 
> it would make as much sense and still be correct.  We have two things 
> @p which get rotated as the new one $v arrives.  How is that more 
> complicated than your longhand variable names?  (If you haven't found 
> the bug, I think you need yet another variable to hold the new value.  
> Then it will give 1,1,1,1,1 instead of 1,2,4,8,16.  But to get 
> 1,2,3,5,8,13 you have to deal with the seeding.)
> 
> So you want better variable names and comments?  Fine.  The algorithm is 
> still more clearly (and correctly) expressed in less code.
> 
>   funky_array => do {
>     my @pair = (1,2); # previous pair
>     [1,2, # seed first
>       map({ # roll-over the pair while calculating the next val
>         push(@pair, my $new_value = shift(@pair)+$pair[0]);
>       $new_value
>     } 3..100)]
>   },
> 
> Or,
> 
>   funky_array => do {
> 	my @out = my @pair = (1,2); # seed/previous pair
> 	for(3..100) {
>       # roll-over the pair while calculating the next value
>       # I call it '$new_value' because it is new, and a value.
> 	  push(@pair, my $new_value = shift(@pair)+$pair[0]);
>       push(@out, $new_value);
>     }
> 	\@out
>   },
> 
> Well, that's getting long-winded.  But, to make sure the dead horse is 
> thoroughly beaten, let me just say that you (hopefully) won't be 
> searching your codebase for bugs and skimming this e-mail in 
> Foo::Bar.pm.  Code is going to be read/skimmed over and over and over 
> and over and over again.  You pay for the extra lines of code *all the 
> time*.  You only pay for the extra density when you're working on that 
> particular chunk.
> 
> --Eric
> -- 
> "Because understanding simplicity is complicated."
> --Eric Raymond
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> 

I just reject outright the code with $p, $v, $i, $j - I admit I am too dumb
to understand it.

Sorry, I was educated that names have to be meaningful and self-explanatory,
which allows one to have self-documented coded, i.e. code needing practically
no comments, because the comments are not needed.

Everything should be obvious; comments should be needed only in places where
the code is not obvious.

Regards,
  Sergei.


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