WTF-coding...
I would like to use the opportunity to start something that might turn into a small series. I like to call it "WTF Coding". Since I'm "native" to the .NET world, it might also become "WTF# coding" at some time, but for now I'm keeping it open.
What's it about? Simple: WTF. What-The-F***!? As it "WTF were they smoking when they came up with that?"
Let me present you: Issue 1, the "collection initializer improvement in C#"
A newsletter recently announced a blog posting that struck me as interesting: a new way of writing collection initializers in C# 6.0, since the old one was sooooo bad (reference here, blog, I'm quoting the version of April 14th 2015 in case it's gone and I have it on file)
The blog says: "...gives you a new syntax that saves a few keystrokes but, more importantly, makes the resulting code easier to read by eliminating some curly braces and leveraging the equals sign." - OK... let's compare the two versions:
Old version
Dictionary cList = new Dictionary()
{
{"A123", new Customer("A123")},
{"B246", new Customer("B246")}
};
New version
Dictionary cList = new Dictionary()
{
["A123"] = new Customer("A123"),
["B246"] = new Customer("B246")
};
OK... so... how is that saving me keystrokes??? Let's dig deeper, just so you know what I mean. Cutting out the code that is 1:1 the same it leaves:
{"A123", new Customer("A123")},
{"B246", new Customer("B246")}
vs.
["A123"] = new Customer("A123"),
["B246"] = new Customer("B246")
And then, only comparing one of these to the new version directly and on top of each other:
{"A123", new Customer("A123")},
["A123"] = new Customer("A123"),
Whoops... the new version is even longer by one character. Granted it's a whitespace that would be cosmetics but still: the number of functional characters is EXACTLY the same as before.
The new vesion might be better to read to newcomers as it more closely resembles the object initializers, a comparison that the blog post never even did, but overall I say it's more a question of taste than actual hard facts of "what is better".
What would be more interesting to me: does the new version also call a method "Add" on the initialized object or does it actually use the indexer? That is tech-info that I'd expect in a programmer's blog because that could break code. And if the new version calls "Add" to be compatible... it's wonky and misleading. So: Who came up with that change and when will that person be potty trained? Because it's childish changes like these that make our lives harder than necessary...
What's it about? Simple: WTF. What-The-F***!? As it "WTF were they smoking when they came up with that?"
Let me present you: Issue 1, the "collection initializer improvement in C#"
A newsletter recently announced a blog posting that struck me as interesting: a new way of writing collection initializers in C# 6.0, since the old one was sooooo bad (reference here, blog, I'm quoting the version of April 14th 2015 in case it's gone and I have it on file)
The blog says: "...gives you a new syntax that saves a few keystrokes but, more importantly, makes the resulting code easier to read by eliminating some curly braces and leveraging the equals sign." - OK... let's compare the two versions:
Old version
Dictionary cList = new Dictionary()
{
{"A123", new Customer("A123")},
{"B246", new Customer("B246")}
};
New version
Dictionary cList = new Dictionary()
{
["A123"] = new Customer("A123"),
["B246"] = new Customer("B246")
};
OK... so... how is that saving me keystrokes??? Let's dig deeper, just so you know what I mean. Cutting out the code that is 1:1 the same it leaves:
{"A123", new Customer("A123")},
{"B246", new Customer("B246")}
vs.
["A123"] = new Customer("A123"),
["B246"] = new Customer("B246")
And then, only comparing one of these to the new version directly and on top of each other:
{"A123", new Customer("A123")},
["A123"] = new Customer("A123"),
Whoops... the new version is even longer by one character. Granted it's a whitespace that would be cosmetics but still: the number of functional characters is EXACTLY the same as before.
The new vesion might be better to read to newcomers as it more closely resembles the object initializers, a comparison that the blog post never even did, but overall I say it's more a question of taste than actual hard facts of "what is better".
What would be more interesting to me: does the new version also call a method "Add" on the initialized object or does it actually use the indexer? That is tech-info that I'd expect in a programmer's blog because that could break code. And if the new version calls "Add" to be compatible... it's wonky and misleading. So: Who came up with that change and when will that person be potty trained? Because it's childish changes like these that make our lives harder than necessary...