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  • Is there an excuse for excessively short variable names?

    - by KChaloux
    This has become a large frustration with the codebase I'm currently working in; many of our variable names are short and undescriptive. I'm the only developer left on the project, and there isn't documentation as to what most of them do, so I have to spend extra time tracking down what they represent. For example, I was reading over some code that updates the definition of an optical surface. The variables set at the start were as follows: double dR, dCV, dK, dDin, dDout, dRin, dRout dR = Convert.ToDouble(_tblAsphere.Rows[0].ItemArray.GetValue(1)); dCV = convert.ToDouble(_tblAsphere.Rows[1].ItemArray.GetValue(1)); ... and so on Maybe it's just me, but it told me essentially nothing about what they represented, which made understanding the code further down difficult. All I knew was that it was a variable parsed out specific row from a specific table, somewhere. After some searching, I found out what they meant: dR = radius dCV = curvature dK = conic constant dDin = inner aperture dDout = outer aperture dRin = inner radius dRout = outer radius I renamed them to essentially what I have up there. It lengthens some lines, but I feel like that's a fair trade off. This kind of naming scheme is used throughout a lot of the code however. I'm not sure if it's an artifact from developers who learned by working with older systems, or if there's a deeper reason behind it. Is there a good reason to name variables this way, or am I justified in updating them to more descriptive names as I come across them?

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  • Deciding between obj->func() and func(obj)

    - by GSto
    I was thinking about this when I was starting to set up some code for a new project: are there any rules of thumb for when a method should be part of an object, and when it should be a stand alone function that takes an object as a parameter? EDIT: as pointed out in a comment, this can depend on language. I was working in C++ when it came to mind, though I'm this is an issue across a number of languages (and would still love to see answers that pertain to them).

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  • Should I return iterators or more sophisticated objects?

    - by Erik
    Say I have a function that creates a list of objects. If I want to return an iterator, I'll have to return iter(a_list). Should I do this, or just return the list as it is? My motivation for returning an iterator is that this would keep the interface smaller -- what kind of container I create to collect the objects is essentially an implementation detail On the other hand, it would be wasteful if the user of my function may have to recreate the same container from the iterator which would be bad for performance.

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  • organization of DLL linked functions

    - by m25
    So this is a code organization question. I got my basic code working but when I expand it will be terrible. I have a DLL that I don't have a .lib for. Therefore I have to use the whole loadLibrary()/getprocaddress() combo. it works great. But this DLL that i'm referencing at 100+ functions. my current process is (1) typedef a type for the function. or typedef short(_stdcall *type1)(void); then (2) assign a function name that I want to use such as type1 function_1, then (3) I do the whole LoadLibrary, then do something like function_1 = (type1)GetProcAddress(hinstLib, "_mangled_funcName@5"); normally I would like to do all of my function definitions in a header file but because I have to do use the load library function, its not that easy. the code will be a mess. Right now i'm doing (1) and (2) in a header file and was considering making a function in another .cpp file to do the load library and dump all of the (3)'s in there. I considered using a namespace for the functions so I can use them in the main function and not have to pass over to the other function. Any other tips on how to organize this code to where it is readable and organized? My goals are to be able to use function_1 as a regular function in the main code. if I have to a ref::function_1 that would be okay but I would prefer to avoid it. this code for all practical purposes is just plane C at the moment. thanks in advance for any advice!

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  • is there any elegant way to analyze an engineer's process?

    - by NewAlexandria
    Plenty of sentiment exists that measuring commits is inappropriate. Has any study been done that tries to draw in more sources than commits - such as: browsing patterns IDE work (pre-commit) idle time multitasking I can't think of an easy way to do these measures, but I wonder if any study has been done. On a personal note, I do believe that reflection on one's own 'metrics' could be valuable regardless of (or in the absence of) using these for performance eval. I.E. an un-biased way to reflect on your habits. But this is a discussion matter beyond Q&A.

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  • Using prefix incremented loops in C#

    - by KChaloux
    Back when I started programming in college, a friend encouraged me to use the prefix incrementation operator ++i instead of the postfix i++, citing that there was a slight chance of better performance with no real chance of a downside. I realize this is true in C++, and it's become a general habit that I continue to do. I'm led to believe that it makes little to no difference when used in a loop in C#, regardless of data type. Apparently the ++ operator can't be overridden. Nevertheless, I like the appearance more, and don't see a direct downside to it. It did astonish a coworker just a moment ago though, he made the (fairly logical) assumption that my loop would terminate early as a result. He's a self-taught programmer, and apparently never came across the C++ convention. That made me question whether or not the equivalent behavior of pre- and post-fix increment and decrement operators in loops is well known enough. Is it acceptable for me to continue using ++i in looping constructs because of style preference, even though it has no real performance benefit? Or is it likely to cause confusion amongst other programmers? Note: This is assuming the ++i convention is used consistently throughout all code.

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  • How to learn what the industry standards/expectations are, particularly with security?

    - by Aerovistae
    For instance, I was making my first mobile web-application about a year ago, and half-way through, someone pointed me to jQuery Mobile. Obviously this induced a total revolution in my app. Rewrote everything. Now, if you're in the field long enough, maybe that seems like common knowledge, but I was totally new to it. But this set me wondering: there are so many libraries and extensions and frameworks. This seems particularly crucial in the category of security. I'm afraid I'm going to find myself doing something in a professional setting eventually (I'm still a student) and someone's going to walk over and be like, My god, you're trying to secure user data that way? Don't you know about the Gordon-Wokker crypto-magic-hash-algorithms library? Without it you may as well go plaintext. How do you know what the best ways are to maximize security? Especially if you're trying to develop something on your own...

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  • if ('constant' == $variable) vs. if ($variable == 'constant')

    - by Tom Auger
    Lately, I've been working a lot in PHP and specifically within the WordPress framework. I'm noticing a lot of code in the form of: if ( 1 == $options['postlink'] ) Where I would have expected to see: if ( $options['postlink'] == 1 ) Is this a convention found in certain languages / frameworks? Is there any reason the former approach is preferable to the latter (from a processing perspective, or a parsing perspective or even a human perspective?) Or is it merely a matter of taste? I have always thought it better when performing a test, that the variable item being tested against some constant is on the left. It seems to map better to the way we would ask the question in natural language: "if the cake is chocolate" rather than "if chocolate is the cake".

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  • How do I keep co-worker from writing horrible code? [closed]

    - by Drew H
    Possible Duplicate: How do I approach a coworker about his or her code quality? I can handle the for in.. without the hasOwnProperty filtering. I can handle the blatant disregard for the libraries I've used in the past and just using something else. I can even handle the functions with 25 parameters. But I can't handle this. var trips = new Array(); var flights = new Array(); var passengers = new Array(); var persons = new Array(); var requests = new Array(); I've submitted documents on code style, had code reviews, gave him Douglas Crockford's book, shown him presentations, other peoples githubs, etc. He still show the same horrible Javascript style. How else could I approach this guy? Thanks for any help.

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  • Is writing comments inside methods not a good practice?

    - by Srini Kandula
    A friend told me that writing comments inside methods is not good. He said that we should have comments only for the method definitions(javadocs) but not inside the method body. It seems he read in a book that having comments inside the code means there is a problem in the code. I don't quite understand his reasoning. I think writing comments inside the method body is good and it helps other developers to understand it better and faster. Please provide your comments.

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  • How to get feedback from the community on large chunks of code?

    - by MainMa
    Code Review.SE is great when you need feedback on a precise, short piece of code. But where to get similar feedback about the code itself when: you have thousands of LOC, don't have colleagues in your workplace ready or willing to review the code¹, don't have thousands of dollars to spend for a professional review by a third party developer?² Places like CodePlex are a good idea to get your project known³, but from what I've seen, the feedback you get on known projects are consumer feedback, i.e. concerns the bugs and feature requests, not the quality of the source code itself. What are the social way to get the community involved in the code review of the codebase of a certain size for an open source project which doesn't have the scale of Firefox or similar products? ¹ Which is the case for most personal and open source projects, or projects done in companies where the practice of regular and complete code review is nonexistent. ² Which is, again, the case for most personal and open source projects. ³ Even if too many projects published on CodePlex never get known, either because nobody cares or because they are presented not very well.

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  • How do I organize a GUI application for passing around events and for setting up reads from a shared resource

    - by Savanni D'Gerinel
    My tools involved here are GTK and Haskell. My questions are probably pretty trivial for anyone who has done significant GUI work, but I've been off in the equivalent of CGI applications for my whole career. I'm building an application that displays tabular data, displays the same data in a graph form, and has an edit field for both entering new data and for editing existing data. After asking about sharing resources, I decided that all of the data involved will be stored in an MVar so that every component can just read the current state from the MVar. All of that works, but now it is time for me to rearrange the application so that it can be interactive. With that in mind, I have three widgets: a TextView (for editing), a TreeView (for displaying the data), and a DrawingArea (for displaying the data as a graph). I THINK I need to do two things, and the core of my question is, are these the right things, or is there a better way. Thing the first: All event handlers, those functions that will be called any time a redisplay is needed, need to be written at a high level and then passed into the function that actually constructs the widget to begin with. For instance: drawStatData :: DrawingArea -> MVar Core.ST -> (Core.ST -> SetRepWorkout.WorkoutStore) -> IO () createStatView :: (DrawingArea -> IO ()) -> IO VBox createUI :: MVar Core.ST -> (Core.ST -> SetRepWorkout.WorkoutStore) -> IO HBox createUI storeMVar field = do graphs <- createStatView (\area -> drawStatData area storeMVar field) hbox <- hBoxNew False 10 boxPackStart hbox graphs PackNatural 0 return hbox In this case, createStatView builds up a VBox that contains a DrawingArea to graph the data and potentially other widgets. It attaches drawStatData to the realize and exposeEvent events for the DrawingArea. I would do something similar for the TreeView, but I am not completely sure what since I have not yet done it and what I am thinking of would involve replacing the TreeModel every time the TreeView needs to be updated. My alternative to the above would be... drawStatData :: DrawingArea -> MVar Core.ST -> (Core.ST -> SetRepWorkout.WorkoutStore) -> IO () createStatView :: IO (VBox, DrawingArea) ... but in this case, I would arrange createUI like so: createUI :: MVar Core.ST -> (Core.ST -> SetRepWorkout.WorkoutStore) -> IO HBox createUI storeMVar field = do (graphbox, graph) <- createStatView (\area -> drawStatData area storeMVar field) hbox <- hBoxNew False 10 boxPackStart hbox graphs PackNatural 0 on graph realize (drawStatData graph storeMVar field) on graph exposeEvent (do liftIO $ drawStatData graph storeMVar field return ()) return hbox I'm not sure which is better, but that does lead me to... Thing the second: it will be necessary for me to rig up an event system so that various events can send signals all the way to my widgets. I'm going to need a mediator of some kind to pass events around and to translate application-semantic events to the actual events that my widgets respond to. Is it better for me to pass my addressable widgets up the call stack to the level where the mediator lives, or to pass the mediator down the call stack and have the widgets register directly with it? So, in summary, my two questions: 1) pass widgets up the call stack to a global mediator, or pass the global mediator down and have the widgets register themselves to it? 2) pass my redraw functions to the builders and have the builders attach the redraw functions to the constructed widgets, or pass the constructed widgets back and have a higher level attach the redraw functions (and potentially link some widgets together)? Okay, and... 3) Books or wikis about GUI application architecture, preferably coherent architectures where people aren't arguing about minute details? The application in its current form (displays data but does not write data or allow for much interaction) is available at https://bitbucket.org/savannidgerinel/fitness . You can run the application by going to the root directory and typing runhaskell -isrc src/Main.hs data/ or... cabal build dist/build/fitness/fitness data/ You may need to install libraries, but cabal should tell you which ones.

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  • "static" as a semantic clue about statelessness?

    - by leoger
    this might be a little philosophical but I hope someone can help me find a good way to think about this. I've recently undertaken a refactoring of a medium sized project in Java to go back and add unit tests. When I realized what a pain it was to mock singletons and statics, I finally "got" what I've been reading about them all this time. (I'm one of those people that needs to learn from experience. Oh well.) So, now that I'm using Spring to create the objects and wire them around, I'm getting rid of static keywords left and right. (If I could potentially want to mock it, it's not really static in the same sense that Math.abs() is, right?) The thing is, I had gotten into the habit of using static to denote that a method didn't rely on any object state. For example: //Before import com.thirdparty.ThirdPartyLibrary.Thingy; public class ThirdPartyLibraryWrapper { public static Thingy newThingy(InputType input) { new Thingy.Builder().withInput(input).alwaysFrobnicate().build(); } } //called as... ThirdPartyLibraryWrapper.newThingy(input); //After public class ThirdPartyFactory { public Thingy newThingy(InputType input) { new Thingy.Builder().withInput(input).alwaysFrobnicate().build(); } } //called as... thirdPartyFactoryInstance.newThingy(input); So, here's where it gets touchy-feely. I liked the old way because the capital letter told me that, just like Math.sin(x), ThirdPartyLibraryWrapper.newThingy(x) did the same thing the same way every time. There's no object state to change how the object does what I'm asking it to do. Here are some possible answers I'm considering. Nobody else feels this way so there's something wrong with me. Maybe I just haven't really internalized the OO way of doing things! Maybe I'm writing in Java but thinking in FORTRAN or somesuch. (Which would be impressive since I've never written FORTRAN.) Maybe I'm using staticness as a sort of proxy for immutability for the purposes of reasoning about code. That being said, what clues should I have in my code for someone coming along to maintain it to know what's stateful and what's not? Perhaps this should just come for free if I choose good object metaphors? e.g. thingyWrapper doesn't sound like it has state indepdent of the wrapped Thingy which may itself be mutable. Similarly, a thingyFactory sounds like it should be immutable but could have different strategies that are chosen among at creation. I hope I've been clear and thanks in advance for your advice!

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  • When to use typedef?

    - by futlib
    I'm a bit confused about if and when I should use typedef in C++. I feel it's a balancing act between readability and clarity. Here's a code sample without any typedefs: int sum(std::vector<int>::const_iterator first, std::vector<int>::const_iterator last) { static std::map<std::tuple<std::vector<int>::const_iterator, std::vector<int>::const_iterator>, int> lookup_table; std::map<std::tuple<std::vector<int>::const_iterator, std::vector<int>::const_iterator>, int>::iterator lookup_it = lookup_table.find(lookup_key); if (lookup_it != lookup_table.end()) return lookup_it->second; ... } Pretty ugly IMO. So I'll add some typedefs within the function to make it look nicer: int sum(std::vector<int>::const_iterator first, std::vector<int>::const_iterator last) { typedef std::tuple<std::vector<int>::const_iterator, std::vector<int>::const_iterator> Lookup_key; typedef std::map<Lookup_key, int> Lookup_table; static Lookup_table lookup_table; Lookup_table::iterator lookup_it = lookup_table.find(lookup_key); if (lookup_it != lookup_table.end()) return lookup_it->second; ... } The code is still a bit clumsy, but I get rid of most nightmare material. But there's still the int vector iterators, this variant gets rid of those: typedef std::vector<int>::const_iterator Input_iterator; int sum(Input_iterator first, Input_iterator last) { typedef std::tuple<Input_iterator, Input_iterator> Lookup_key; typedef std::map<Lookup_key, int> Lookup_table; static Lookup_table lookup_table; Lookup_table::iterator lookup_it = lookup_table.find(lookup_key); if (lookup_it != lookup_table.end()) return lookup_it->second; ... } This looks clean, but is it still readable? When should I use a typedef? As soon as I have a nightmare type? As soon as it occurs more than once? Where should I put them? Should I use them in function signatures or keep them to the implementation?

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  • Should you always pass the bare minimum data needed into a function

    - by Anders Holmström
    Let's say I have a function IsAdmin that checks whether a user is an admin. Let's also say that the admin checking is done by matching user id, name and password against some sort of rule (not important). In my head there are then two possible function signatures for this: public bool IsAdmin(User user); public bool IsAdmin(int id, string name, string password); I most often go for the second type of signature, thinking that: The function signature gives the reader a lot more info The logic contained inside the function doesn't have to know about the User class It usually results in slightly less code inside the function However I sometimes question this approach, and also realize that at some point it would become unwieldy. If for example a function would map between ten different object fields into a resulting bool I would obviously send in the entire object. But apart from a stark example like that I can't see a reason to pass in the actual object. I would appreciate any arguments for either style, as well as any general observations you might offer. I program in both object oriented and functional styles, so the question should be seen as regarding any and all idioms.

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  • Should I sacrifice code succintness to ensure the narrowest variable scope? [duplicate]

    - by David Scholefield
    This question already has an answer here: Is the usage of internal scope blocks within a function bad style? 3 answers In many languages (e.g. both Perl and Java - which are the two languages I work most with) it is possible to narrow the scope of local variables by declaring them within a block. Although it adds extra code length (the opening and closing block braces), and possibly reduces readability, should I create blocks purely to narrow the scope of variables to the statements that use the variables and to uphold the principle of narrowest scope or does this sacrifice succinctness and readability just to unnecessarily uphold an agreed 'best practice' principle? I usually declare local variables to functions/methods at the start of the function to aid readability, but I could not do this, and just create blocks throughout the function and declare the variables throughout the code - within those blocks - to narrow their scope.

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  • Functions that only call other functions. Is this a good practice?

    - by Eric C.
    I'm currently working on a set of reports that have many different sections (all requiring different formatting), and I'm trying to figure out the best way to structure my code. Similar reports we've done in the past end up having very large (200+ line) functions that do all of the data manipulation and formatting for the report, such that the workflow looks something like this: DataTable reportTable = new DataTable(); void RunReport() { reportTable = DataClass.getReportData(); largeReportProcessingFunction(); outputReportToUser(); } I would like to be able to break these large functions up into smaller chunks, but I'm afraid that I'll just end up having dozens of non-reusable functions, and a similar "do everything here" function whose only job is to call all these smaller functions, like so: void largeReportProcessingFunction() { processSection1HeaderData(); calculateSection1HeaderAverages(); formatSection1HeaderDisplay(); processSection1SummaryTableData(); calculateSection1SummaryTableTotalRow(); formatSection1SummaryTableDisplay(); processSection1FooterData(); getSection1FooterSummaryTotals(); formatSection1FooterDisplay(); processSection2HeaderData(); calculateSection1HeaderAverages(); formatSection1HeaderDisplay(); calculateSection1HeaderAverages(); ... } Or, if we go one step further: void largeReportProcessingFunction() { callAllSection1Functions(); callAllSection2Functions(); callAllSection3Functions(); ... } Is this really a better solution? From an organizational point of view I suppose it is (i.e. everything is much more organized than it might otherwise be), but as far as code readability I'm not sure (potentially large chains of functions that only call other functions). Thoughts?

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  • Use unnamed object to invoke method or not?

    - by Chen OT
    If I have a class with only only public method. When I use this class, is it good to use unnamed object to invoke its method? normal: TaxFileParser tax_parser(tax_file_name); auto content = tax_parser.get_content(); or unnamed object version: auto content = TaxFileParser(tax_file_name).get_content(); Because I've told that we should avoid temporary as possible. If tax_parser object is used only once, can I call it a temporary and try to eliminate it? Any suggestion will be helpful.

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  • Should I use parentheses in logical statements even where not necessary?

    - by Jeff Bridgman
    Let's say I have a boolean condition a AND b OR c AND d and I'm using a language where AND has a higher order of operation precedent than OR. I could write this line of code: If (a AND b) OR (c AND d) Then ... But really, that's equivalent to: If a AND b OR c AND d Then ... Are there any arguments in for or against including the extraneous parentheses? Does practical experience suggest that it is worth including them for readability? Or is it a sign that a developer needs to really sit down and become confident in the basics of their language?

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  • What is the worst programmer habit?

    - by 0x4a6f4672
    Many people get into programming because programming is fun. At least in the beginning. After some time doing it professionally, programming is no longer fun, often just hard work. Sometimes we develop bad habits along the way to make it fun again. Some bad habits of programmers are well known, for example the "I fix that in a second" habit, the "reinvent the wheel" practice or the "all code except mine is crap" attitude (which often leads to "I will re-write the entire program from scratch" syndrome). There are things which a programmer should never do. What is the worst programmer habit?

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  • Is it bad style to redundantly check a condition?

    - by mcwise
    I often get to positions in my code where I find myself checking a specific condition over and over again. I want to give you a small example: suppose there is a text file which contains lines starting with "a", lines starting with "b" and other lines and I actually only want to work with the first two sort of lines. My code would look something like this (using python, but read it as pseudocode): # ... clear_lines() # removes every other line than those starting with "a" or "b" for line in lines: if (line.startsWith("a")): # do stuff if (line.startsWith("b")): # magic else: # this else is redundant, I already made sure there is no else-case # by using clear_lines() # ... You can imagine I won't only check this condition here, but maybe also in other functions and so on. Do you think of it as noise or does it add some value to my code?

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  • Where should I define constants in scripts?

    - by bshacklett
    When writing scripts using a modern scripting language, e.g. Powershell or JavaScript, where should I define constants? Should I make all constants global for readability and ease of use, or does it make sense to define constants as close to their scopes as possible (in a function, for instance, if it's not needed elsewhere)? I'm thinking mostly of error messages, error IDs, paths to resources or configuration options.

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  • Assignments in mock return values

    - by zerkms
    (I will show examples using php and phpunit but this may be applied to any programming language) The case: let's say we have a method A::foo that delegates some work to class M and returns the value as-is. Which of these solutions would you choose: $mock = $this->getMock('M'); $mock->expects($this->once()) ->method('bar') ->will($this->returnValue('baz')); $obj = new A($mock); $this->assertEquals('baz', $obj->foo()); or $mock = $this->getMock('M'); $mock->expects($this->once()) ->method('bar') ->will($this->returnValue($result = 'baz')); $obj = new A($mock); $this->assertEquals($result, $obj->foo()); or $result = 'baz'; $mock = $this->getMock('M'); $mock->expects($this->once()) ->method('bar') ->will($this->returnValue($result)); $obj = new A($mock); $this->assertEquals($result, $obj->foo()); Personally I always follow the 2nd solution, but just 10 minutes ago I had a conversation with couple of developers who said that it is "too tricky" and chose 3rd or 1st. So what would you usually do? And do you have any conventions to follow in such cases?

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  • Naming conventions for newtype deconstructors (destructors?)

    - by Petr Pudlák
    Looking into Haskell's standard library we can see: newtype StateT s m a = StateT { runStateT :: s -> m (a, s) } newtype WrappedMonad m a = WrapMonad { unwrapMonad :: m a } newtype Sum a = Sum { getSum :: a } Apparently, there (at least) 3 different prefixes used to unwrap a value inside a newtype: un-, run- and get-. (Moreover run- and get- capitalizes the next letter while un- doesn't.) This seems confusing. Are there any reasons for that, or is that just a historical thing? If I design my own newtype, what prefix should I use and why?

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  • creative & complex vs simple and readable

    - by Shirish11
    Which is a better option? Its not always that when you have something creative your code is going to look ugly. But at times it does go a bit ugly. e.g. if ( (object1(0)==object2(0) && (object1(1)==object2(1) && (object1(2)==object2(2) && (object1(3)==object2(3)){ retval = true; else retval = false; is simple and readable bool retValue = (object1(0)==object2(0)) && (object1(1)==object2(1)) && (object1(2)==object2(2)) && (object1(3)==object2(3)); but having something like this will make some newbies scratch their heads. So what do I go for? including simple code everywhere might sometime hamper my performance. what I could think of was commenting wherever necessary but at times u get too curious to know what is actually happening. Any suggestions are welcome.

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