TAOCP is a misleading title. It shouldn’t be computer programming. It should be computer science.
For most people, programming is the engineering discipline. I think that’s a very different art form. Software engineers are rarely dealing with the type of problems TAOCP is concerned about.
Squadron “Feature Complete” 42
I’m mostly working in Java now. I’m proficient to the degree that I can solve most things without looking for reference online. I think that matters most to me.
OO languages typically use garbage collector. The main purpose of the borrow checker is to resolve the ambiguity of who is responsible for deallocating the data.
In GC languages, there’s usually no such ambiguity. The GC takes care of it.
Sounds like you’re thinking more about the builder pattern.
Mainstream statically-typed OOP allows straightforward backwards compatible evolution of types, while keeping them easy to compose. I consider this to be one of the killer features of mainstream statically-typed OOP, and I believe it is an essential feature for programming with many people, over long periods of time.
I 100% agree with this. The strength of OOP comes with maintaining large programs over a long time. Usually with ever changing requirements.
This is something that’s difficult to demonstrate with small toy examples, which gives OOP languages an unfair disadvantage. Yeah, it might be slower. Yeah, there might be more boilerplate to write. But how does the alternative solutions compare with regards to maintainability?
The main problem with OOP is that maintainability doesn’t necessarily come naturally. It requires lots of experience and discipline to get it right. It’s easy to paint yourself in the corner if you don’t know what you’re doing.
What a legend!
A few years ago it was sensational when someone managed to clear a few levels in max speed. Now all max speed levels have been beaten.
What’s next for NES Tetris? Feels like it’s more of an endurance game now.
Pac Man was younger when Halo was released than Master Chief is today.
deleted by creator
Let me guess, the coins can only be bought in bundles. The bundles are deliberately made so that no matter how you spend the coins, you’ll always have 1 or 2 coins left. Which makes you encouraged to buy another bundle to make all your moneys worth.
In case you’re wondering about the down votes, many think Clean Code is not a good book. It got a few good advice, but it also got bad advice disguised as good advice.
I don’t think switch statements should always be avoided. There are cases where polymorphism makes things more difficult to maintain. Saying polymorphism should be used over switch statements is not a good advice.
Here’s an article going into more detail why we should stop recommending Clean Code: https://qntm.org/clean
For me I have the habit of doing findFirst because determinism is important where I work. But I agree with you if determinism is not of importance.
Looks like it’s JavaScript, but in Java I would prefer to use the Stream API, something like this:
return availableDrivers.stream()
.filter(driver -> calculateDistance(rider, driver) < 5)
.filter(driver -> isPreferredVehicle(rider, driver))
.filter(driver -> meetsRiderPreferences(rider, driver))
.findFirst()
.orElse(null);
Then we have:
private boolean meetsRiderPreferences(Rider rider, Driver driver) {
if (driver.rating >= 4.5) {
if (rider.preferences.includes('Premium Driver')) {
return driver.isPremiumDriver;
} else {
return true;
}
} else if (driver.rating >= 4.0) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
This increases the separation of concern in a neat way, and it becomes more clear what the for loop does at a glance (get the first driver satisfying a set of conditions). The more complicated logic is isolated in meetsRiderPreferences, which now only returns true or false. Reading the method is more about making a mental map of a truth table.
It’s also easy to expand the logic (add more filter conditions, sort the drivers based on rating and distance, break out meetsRiderPreferences into smaller methods, etc.).
Not sure how the equivalent in JavaScript would look like, but this is what I would do in Java.
There’s C++/CLI if you want to combine garbage collection with the pain of C++
I relate. Technical debt is by far the most common source of frustration in my career. It’s that code someone inexperienced wrote years ago that no one longer understands, but it still needs to be maintained. Often the code is also unnecessarily convoluted, so there’s a high risk of introducing new bugs when working with it.
I’ve recently managed to refactor such code recently. No one could work with it with confidence, it was slow and it was buggy. A lot of the code was also completely unnecessary (like 100 line convoluted mess that could be done with 1 line of code).
Now someone else in my team who has never worked with this code wrote a major addition to it without much assistance, so I take it as a sign that my refactor is a great improvement.
I haven’t played Plucky yet, but this is what I liked about Tunic. It gives you a hint, and then trusts the player to experiment with the hint they’re given. It makes it feel like your own adventure.
I didn’t read everything, but I mostly agree with the author, especially on this point:
While you can definitely abuse exceptions, functional-style error values are not a one-size-fits-all solution.
There are time and place for both. I think exceptions are good for bigger errors. Like database connection errors. Things that shouldn’t happen without any easy backup plan. Those errors might need to be escalated as high as possible where proper action can be made (like resetting the database connection and everything relying on it).
Functional style is great for smaller stuff. Like key not found in hash maps. In many cases there might be good defaults that can be used instead.
It’s a concept of a plan
From the original document:
My interpretation is that smart pointers are allowed, as long it’s systematically enforced. Switching to a memory safe language is just one example.