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[-] Buttons@programming.dev 33 points 1 year ago

Shorter code is almost always better.

Should you use a class? Should you use a Factory pattern or some other pattern? Should you reorganize your code? Whichever results in the least code is probably best.

A nice thing about code length is it's objective. We can argue all day about which design pattern makes more sense, but we can agree on which of two implementations is shorter.

It takes a damn good abstraction to beat having shorter code.

[-] TanakaAsuka@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 year ago

I mostly agree with this but more than shorter code I value readability, I would rather take 3 lines to be clear to any developer than use some obscure or easy to misunderstand structure to write it in 1.

[-] StudioLE@programming.dev 7 points 1 year ago

Yep. And three functions is better than one for legibility even if one would be fewer lines of code

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I think it really depends. Functions break up the visual flow, so if you need to look at multiple functions to visualize one conceptual process then it can be less efficient

[-] Buttons@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

Yes. I learned this from Haskell. I like Haskell, but it has a lot of very granular functions.

Earlier comment said that breaking up 1 function into 3 improves readability? Well, if you really want readability then break it up into 30 functions using Haskell. Your single function with 25 lines will become 30 functions, so readable (/s).

In truth, there's a balance between the two. Breaking things up into function does have advantages, but, as you say, it makes it more likely that you'll have to jump around a lot to understand a single process.

[-] gornius@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I specifically have a rule that if at the current abstraction layer, a step is more than one function call/assignment - I'm creating another function for that.

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

I think they didn't mean how you structure your code but actually precision.

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this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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