Prgramming style (was: Accessors)
Prgramming style (was: Accessors)
- Subject: Prgramming style (was: Accessors)
- From: Ondra Cada <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 14:53:55 +0200
On Thursday, August 8, 2002, at 12:29 , Bill Cheeseman wrote:
- setSomeName: (SomeType*)newSomeName
{
if (newSomeName == _someName) return;
[_someName release];
_someName = [newSomeName copy];
}
I've noticed a couple of people testing for equality and returning in the
first line, like this. My usual practice is to test for inequality, then
fall through to the bottom if the test is false.
Is there some advantage to the return? I've always thought it was just a
matter of style.
Pure style, and the advantages of return are completely subjective.
Your usual practice is cleaner from the theoretical POV of structured
programming: it makes for just one exit of block, which is *generally*
desirable. (Note though it might be argued that the break command is bad
for the same reason, whilst not using break leads to *really* messed up
code with artifical BOOL variables and unnecessary blocks; let's not go
into that!)
The outlined practice, OTOH, might be for some better readable and saves
at least one line, making so the source (for some) easier to grasp at the
first look (there's a world of difference between a complete class
implementation which fits inside a window and one which does not).
There are no hard rules "go this way, lest XYZ". There are people who
claim the rigid structuring helps them to keep their code bugfree and
easily maintainable. My own 20 years + programming experience says exactly
otherwise -- for me and my team, it proved better to write a simple and
intuitive code whenever rigid rules would lead to more complicated and/or
less intelligible one. The best advice for you is just to do what suits
*you* best.
Finally, I can't resist to point out that it's funny how -- at least in
those first four-odd follow-ups I've seen in the list already -- nicely
correlates style rigidness with the "I know best what's good for you"
attitude: we who prefer the early return say "do what suits you"; those
who prefer rigid style say "do what suits me"! ;))))
---
Ondra Hada
OCSoftware: email@hidden
http://www.ocs.cz
private email@hidden
http://www.ocs.cz/oc
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